Since June 2020, Collingwood Neighbourhood House (CNH) has offered health care to residents of Renfrew-Collingwood through RISE Community Health Centre. Using a team-based approach that recognizes the social determinants of health, RISE operates a primary care clinic and not-for-profit pharmacy. Additional services include harm reduction, community development and health promotion.
We share some highlights from staff about their experiences working with RISE and what makes it different from traditional healthcare providers.
Meet James, RISE registered nurse
For over three years, James Kendal-Ward has worked as a registered nurse at RISE. Recently, they have also been working as an interim patient care supervisor.
What originally brought you to RISE?
“I originally applied because I knew someone who worked here. The patient care supervisor who worked here in 2021, we worked together as nurses at another site. She sent me a text and invited me to apply. I also had another friend who was working here as a nurse, and I was like, ‘Oh my god, you’re hiring. Yes, I’m on my way!’”
What has made you stay over the last 3+ years?
“I really like it here on a practical, day-to-day level. If you’re nursing, you tend to go towards shift work, which are like day shifts, night shifts and a cycling schedule. Even in other sites I’ve worked at, it’s been rotating shifts, so you never have the same schedule. On the practical level, working the same hours, the same days every week, has been life-changing for me as a nurse. I know I’m free on Tuesday afternoons, so it’s practical for me not to have to figure out my schedule.
“Also, the team here is amazing. I really like doing primary care. It’s not something that they focus on in nursing school. They focus on acute care. Primary care is quite complex and nuanced, like really relational care. I have had the same patients for as long as I’ve worked here. You get to know people. You get to know their baseline. Then, it’s a matter of making sure that their baseline improves over time, which is fantastic, and stabilizing people, keeping them out of the hospital by being in relation with them through a healthcare lens.”
Has there been anything that has surprised you about working here?
“The pace surprised me. Before working here, I worked in the hospital and I worked at one of the urgent and primary care centres. The paces for those were different, but here, there’s very rarely a five-alarm fire.
“If someone needs to go to the hospital, we try to get them to the hospital and a lot of times, it’s folks with barriers we are trying to convince to go to the hospital. But if anyone is acutely ill, they go to the hospital. So, it’s not like hospital shift nursing, where you have to be like, am I thinking about this person’s oxygen? It’s more thinking about how they are going to spend the next couple of weeks. So there’s a lack of that urgency, which means you get to think, problem solve and do more case management, which is still mentally quite invigorating.
“It also surprised me that this was one of the jobs where you can get a coffee and talk to your co-worker for 10 minutes about a different patient, and you’re not going to be buried with work because there’s space for that. But I go home at the end of the day and I’m still tired because there’s so much thinking, navigating, planning and coordinating.”
And with healthcare and team-based care. Clients are not here to do one thing.
“I think it also surprised me how collaborative it is working here. I know I am very spoiled in this job. Working here, we have the team and there are registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, social workers, counsellors, medical practitioners and general practitioners. Everyone has their own training and so the variety of voices, viewpoints and opinions is valuable. We do team-based meetings, and we really listen and support each other. I am not enacting orders from anyone, we’re all participatory in this clinic.”
Who do you feel should apply to work at RISE?
“I feel like the people who know themselves to be relational, like nurses and and primary care supervisors, the folks who did well in the social determinants of health courses in nursing school, the folks who are at the hospital being like, ‘Wait, if we discharge this person, aren’t they going to come back immediately?’ and the ones who can see the gaps in the system.
“I feel that RISE, in being its own model, there’s a little bit more satisfaction in filling some of those gaps and being able to feel like a positive change in our healthcare system.”
What type of clientele should applicants be familiar with or comfortable working with at RISE?
“Folks with barriers to care, specifically newcomers, people who need help accessing, status, MSP or other legal protection. Folks who are low income and also in this community, because we have our community catchment, so like people who are familiar with Renfew-Collingwood, people who like working with older folks, people who like seeing babies. People who like, taking a two-year-old’s measurements and trying to navigate getting them on the scale. It’s quite broad.”
Anything else people should know about working here?
“It is possible to work in a place where you feel like everyone is so earnestly, honestly and compassionately trying to do good for people. Without exception, everyone here is trying as hard as they can to help and that’s incredible. If you want to do that, come. If you’re feeling healthcare burnout in other places, come to us. It’s a heavy load but we’re so nice and we have snacks. If your goal is to have a sustainable work-life balance and to be able to make dinner after work, and have things like waking up on your first day off and make breakfast and not feel exhausted, it’s a lovely place to work. We don’t have shift premiums but we have a great work-life balance.”
Learn more about career opportunities at RISE Community Health Centre at cnh.bc.ca/careers.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
