With the demand for healthcare services increasing, Trent University and the Peterborough Community Health Centre (PCHC) have teamed up to improve primary care services to rural and Indigenous communities in Peterborough County while also providing nursing students with practical experience.
On Wednesday (October 15) at Trent University, the partners unveiled a new donor-funded community outreach vehicle that will serve the communities of Havelock, Ennismore, and Hiawatha First Nation for two days per week during the first year of a pilot project.
“Our mission is to meet people where they are, addressing not just medical needs but the broader social factors that impact health,” said PCHC executive director Ashley Safar, noting that the community outreach vehicle reflects PHCH’s commitment to low-barrier and community-based care.
“By partnering with Trent, we’re able to expand access to primary care and ensure more people receive the timely equitable care they deserve,” Safar added.
Staffed by a nurse practitioner and eight second-year students of the Trent/Fleming School of Nursing each academic term, the outreach vehicle will offer drop-in services for acute and chronic conditions, well-child visits, harm reduction supplies, and safer sex supplies and education.
“By partnering with PCHC and through the generosity of our donors to Trent’s Momentous Campaign, we are advancing access to healthcare for Indigenous, rural, and underserved populations while ensuring our students gain the experience to become leaders in equitable healthcare,” said Trent/Fleming School of Nursing dean Dr. Hugo Lehmann.
Trent University and PCHC say that, if the first year of the pilot project is successful, they hope to increase funding for the initiative, expanding the range of services offered, increasing the number of communities served, and involving students from additional disciplines beyond nursing such as social work.
“Students gain so much by serving directly in communities and by being immersed in the realities of frontline healthcare,” said Erinne Stevens, a nurse practitioner in the Trent/Fleming School of Nursing who will be leading the participating students. “The community health outreach vehicle will allow students to build clinical expertise while also learning what it means to provide care that is accessible, responsive, and rooted in community.”
Schedules and locations of the community health outreach vehicle will be available on the PCHC website at www.ptbochc.ca.
