Health Canada to Fund English-Language Health Information Centre in Hull
Published by Cynthia Turpin on 2010-02-01
by Dave Rogers
Danielle Lanyi, manager of the Outaouais Health and Social Services Network, said the office will be in a classroom at Pierre Elliott Trudeau Elementary School on Millar Street off Boulevard Alexandre-Taché.
Lanyi said Health Canada is financing the information centre to provide better access to health care for official language minorities across Canada.
"Our objective is to help people get access to health care and social services at Outaouais public institutions," Lanyi said. "It will not be a resource centre not a clinic that provides health care.
"We will be working with public institutions to sensitize them to the needs of the English-speaking community. In Quebec this service is for English-speaking communities but in the rest of Canada it is for French-speaking communities."
Lanyi said the service is necessary because only half of the 54,000 English-speaking Outaouais residents are bilingual. Many English-speakers are seniors who have trouble figuring out how to get services they need.
"When people are sick or if they are in a crisis they want to express themselves in their mother tongue," Lanyi said. "It is really important that people can explain things to people so they can understand what is going on.
"It does happen that English-speaking people have access to health care only in French. I can't say how often it happens, but sometimes language is definitely a barrier."
Lanyi said the service will have one full-time employee and at least one part-time worker starting in mid-March. The hours of operation haven't been set yet.
More information about the Outaouais Health and Social Services Network is available at its website www.ohssn.org.
