Health
People living in Renfrew-Collingwood and surrounding neighbourhoods now have access to more primary care and health promotion services with the opening of the new RISE Community Health Centre.
The Province launched RISE Community Health Centre in collaboration with the Collingwood Neighbourhood House (CNH) Society to provide comprehensive primary health care and health promotion services to residents.
Community health centres are either community governed or community informed and they are most often not-for-profit organizations with services tailored to meet the health needs of the community they serve. RISE is governed, owned and operated by Collingwood Neighbourhood House.
“Our primary care strategy is providing increased and improved access to everyday health care to people throughout B.C., including in Renfrew-Collingwood,” said Adrian Dix, Minister of Health. “We’ve listened to the people in Renfrew-Collingwood and have built on the good work their community organizations are already doing. Now that RISE is open in its main location, in addition to the site at CNH, more people will be able to get the care they need when they need it. This will make a difference for those who have been struggling to access health-care services.”
Located at 3425 Crowley Dr., RISE will first offer comprehensive primary care and health-promotion services. It is accepting patients by self-referral, community referral and medical provider referral.
Services available include attaching people without a primary care provider to a family doctor or a nurse practitioner, providing access to preventative and primary health-care services to patients with complex medical and social needs, mental health and addictions challenges, and co-ordination of specialist care. RISE also provides health promotion programs, such as health education to the broader community, provision of harm reductions supplies, and outreach and collaborations with local programs and services to support residents.
RISE has been providing primary care and health promotion services through a clinical space located at CNH since November 2019. Services at this site will continue.
More than 12 full time equivalent (FTE) staff will work at RISE. This is an increase of more than eight FTEs since November 2019. Staff include a director, clinical co-ordinator, medical office assistant, clinical lead, nurse practitioner, community health worker, registered nurse, clinical counsellor and social worker. The centre expects to have approximately 20,000 patient visits in the first year of operation.
Once the centre is fully operational, it will work to attach more than 3,700 residents, who are struggling to access medical services, to a primary care team.
“I would like to acknowledge the passion and dedication of the Collingwood Neighbourhood House Society and all its partners for working tirelessly to improve access to services for the people in the community and surrounding areas,” Dix said.
RISE will expand its services and clinical team in the first two years of operation. Once at full capacity, the centre will have more than 20 FTE staff. Over time, people will also benefit from additional health promotion and disease prevention activities, such as a pharmacy dispensary, physiotherapy, nutrition support, counselling and patient education, as well as support to navigate health and social service systems.
Quick Facts:
- There are approximately 100 health authority-run community health centres and 30 community-governed community health centres in British Columbia.
- These centres focus on integrating services and programs in primary care, health promotion and community well-being, and work to address social determinants of health by linking with other social-sector agencies and services.
Learn More:
For video of the RISE Community Health Centre, visit: https://youtu.be/P6ao2Z5miPE
To learn more about the Province’s primary health-care strategy, visit: https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2018PREM0034-001010
To learn more about the Province’s strategy to increase the number of nurse practitioners, visit: https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2018HLTH0034-000995
To learn more about the Province’s strategy to recruit and retain more family medicine graduates, visit: https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2018HLTH0052-001043
To learn more about RISE community health centre, visit: www.cnh.bc.ca/rise
Two backgrounders follow.
