NOR’WEST
(From left) Lila Knox, Ken Grove, Nancy Heinrich, Elizabete Halprin, Trina Raine and Dr. Kadirah Lupitasari are part of the team at not-for- profit Nor’West Co-op Community Health in north Winnipeg. Photos by Darcy Finley
By setting up a co-op, the clients’ and community’s needs would be the focus rather than the physicians.” The main issues addressed were access to healthy food, economics and education because they affect healthcare so dramatically. “It was a primary care clinic at the start,” Grove says. “They had a doctor, a nurse practitioner, a nurse and I think they had a
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who sits on the board of directors and to run to sit on that board. The co-op’s mission is “to engage the community in cooperative health and wellness” in a dignified way, its website says. The co- op currently boasts more than 850 members. The co-op employs between 150 and 160 people, with about 80 “very robust volunteers,” Horodecki adds.
counsellor. They had five or six people. They had a vision of mental healthcare needs and very quickly expanded.” The co-op now has five full-time doctors, eight full-time nurse practitioners and a number of nurses, therapists and counsellors. The co-op also started up a food service centre about four years ago. Anyone can eat a free sit-down lunch three times a week and one supper a week. If someone can afford to pay for a meal, it’s only $1.50 and they may be asked to pay for one other person’s meal. The food centre also teaches people how to cook and grow gardens.
It now costs about $11 million per annum to operate and the not-for-profit organization gets funding from the provincial government, United Way, Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, the Winnipeg Foundation and a host of others, says Ken Grove, the co-executive director alongside Nancy Heinrichs. Other services the co-op offers include a walk-in clinic, pharmacy, counselling for adults, counselling and legal advice for victims of domestic abuse, and job training. It has won the Aon Award for Best Small Business three times. The co-op has come a long way since it was founded on Nov. 27, 1972.
Another relatively new program is the Hans Kai, adapted from Japan, where participants get together to improve their health through nutrition and exercise. While there are no plans to add any additional programs at this time, many of the existing ones will be expanded, Grove says. For more information, visit www.norwestcoop.ca. ■
“Our understanding is that a group of physicians and some others were concerned about what was happening in their neighbourhood in terms of healthcare,” Grove says. “The Inkster and Tyndall Park area was kind of a barren wasteland. So, they decided to set up a co-op that would include patients having a voice in how it’s run.
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WINTER 2019
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