Sorrento Health

Want to Know More About Diabetes Care?

By Marilyn Clark

Notification of this webinar event entitled “Careful and Kind Diabetes Care” came across my mail this week. It is scheduled for Wednesday, September 23, 7 to 8:15 pm PDT and is open to the general public but you must register in order to participate.

Dr. Victor Montori, MD, the presenter, is a world-renowned endocrinologist and researcher and Professor of Medicine at Mayo Clinic and, apparently "a great promoter of the patient/citizen voice in medicine". He authored “Why We Revolt: A Patient Revolution for Careful and Kind Care”. Dr. Montori has authored more than 650 peerreviewed publications and is noted as "among the top 1% of researchers with most cited papers in the clinical medicine and in social science worldwide in the last decade". He is recognized as an expert in evidencebased medicine and shared decision making.

It could be particularly relevant to those managing diabetes as Dr. Montori is a great proponent for practitioner/patient shared decision making. Health practitioners are eligible for a Continuing Education credit for this event. The stated learning goals for participants in the session include the ability to:

Describe how to care for each person with diabetes with evidencebased minimally disruptive medicine and shared decision making.

Find in minimally disruptive care, evidence-based medicine, and shared decision making the approaches and tools that help fit care for each person.

Explain how an approach that considers both the burden of disease and the burden of treatment contributes to patientcentered diabetes care

The following link takes you to UBC's announcement and provides directions to register: https:// www.ti.ubc.ca/2020/08/13/sept-23-careful-and-kinddiabetes-care/

CORONA PRECAUTIONS: I went to the bathroom at a restaurant. I washed my hands. Opened the door with my elbow. Raised the toilet seat with my foot. I switched on the water faucet with a tissue. Opened the bathroom door to leave with my elbow. AND when I returned to my table I realized… I forgot to pull up my pants!!!!

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Society Supports Housing

By Michael Shapcott Housing and homelessness are not just big city concerns: a housing needs assessment for the South Shuswap recently completed shows that seniors, low-income families, renters and seasonal workers are all struggling to find a good home in our rural region. The Columbia-Shuswap Regional District commissioned Vancouver-based Urbanics Consultants to complete the housing review of our area. The experts looked at housing data and the current housing market, surveyed more than 600 residents and spoke to a variety of local experts. Their 102 -page report provides the most detailed overview of housing in our community.

Some key findings:

• Our population is aging, and there is not enough healthy and ageappropriate housing for independent seniors, in particular. • Average household size is shrinking, which means we need more housing for the same size of population. • Housing prices are rising beyond the level affordable to a growing part of the population, in particular renter households and seasonal workers. • There is very little nonmarket housing (non-profit and co-operative homes) that are more affordably priced. Here is one of many quotes from the housing report:

“Low cost rental housing is non-existent which hurts low income and seasonal workers. We also need seniors housing providing independ

ent living and assisted care. Too many people have to move elsewhere because it’s not available in this area.”

The consultants say the entire housing spectrum in the South Shuswap needs to be tackled:

• Encourage the development and diversity of affordable, market-rate housing. • Enhance the supply of rental housing. • Promote greater availability and accessibility of seniors’ housing. • Increase the supply of nonmarket housing (affordable non-profit and co-op homes). The big challenge for the ColumbiaShuswap Regional District is that it doesn’t have the financial resources, the operational capacity or even the mandate to create a big housing department that would take on development and management of affordable housing issues – as happens in some big cities across the country. So, we have big city problems, but lack the ability to adopt big city solutions. That’s where the South Shuswap Housing Society, and other community-based housing groups throughout our wider region (like CMHA Shuswap in Salmon Arm), come in. Our housing society was established in 2019 when several groups – including the South Shuswap Chamber of Commerce, the South Shuswap Health Services Society, the Sorrento Foodbank, St Mary’s Anglican / United Church and the Sorrento Centre – joined together. Continued on page 19)