Dr. Marianne Morgan is a family physician who stepped up when it was seen that children and youth needed better access to mental health care in Kelowna.
Dr. Morgan rallied support behind the Child and Youth Mental Health and Substance Use Collaborative “to improve access for kids to get them faster and more appropriate care.”
“Groups were siloed,” she says of the insular traditions in health care.
Different medical practitioners had their own associations with very few lines of communication between them.
Then, four years ago, provincial government ministries requested help from local practitioners to affect change in their own communities.
“Over four years we’ve gotten everyone together and created all kinds of different groups to deal with gaps from the emergency room to parents to youth,” she says.
“Because (Kelowna physicians) were organized and communicating, we were one of the first in B.C. to get the funding,” to develop Kelowna into a Youth Hub — a “one stop shop where kids can get help and they don’t have to go around to separate offices.”
