Stakeholders Band Together to Locally Decide on Funding

A couple of years ago we managed to talk to the Minister of Health and [Health Authority X] into basically subdividing off $500,000 a year, which the district and [Health Authority X] locally and stakeholders will direct as far as programming annually. So, we take that $500,000 and we get together and we have a committee and we allow stakeholder groups to apply for grants or make suggestions for programming to spend that $500,000 a year annually on health-related programming…[Health Authority X] is on the committee, the district is on the committee, stakeholder groups…is on the committee…So, we validate things annually, we change things up depending on what requirements are seen to be out there and it’s a good thing. We’ve established positions like volunteer coordinators and other things like that to really address locally some health outcomes. It’s never enough, but certainly it’s light years ahead of what used to be where it was [with] the, the Health Authority kind of from the top down approach deciding where to spend their money.