‘We meet our people at their level’: Health non-profit secures $100K grant for ‘informal’ cancer screening initiative

A Huron County health care nonprofit has won a $100,000 award for innovative cancer screening programs. Scott Miller explains.

For years now, the Gateway Centre for Excellence in Rural Health in Goderich has been delivering important cancer screening information directly to farmers, firefighters and seniors in public, non-clinical settings.

“We meet our people at their level,” said Gwen Devereaux, president of the Gateway Centre for Excellence in Rural Health.

Devereaux says Gateway’s SHED Talks, where they conduct health discussions with farmers in sheds and barns across Huron and Perth counties, or the Legion Learning Lounge, where they layer in cancer screening information while solving tech issues for seniors, are important because 20,000 Huron-Perth residents don’t have a family physician to ask those important health questions to.

“I think people traditionally, me as well, went to our primary care practitioner, and that’s where we went for guidance. And now, with the shortage of family physicians across rural areas, we need to layer in some help for our rural residents to get the information that they so desperately need,” explained Devereaux.

For their efforts to normalize cancer screening conversations outside typical health settings, the Gateway Centre has received a $100,000 award from the MaRS Discovery District and Canadian Cancer Society, through their Rural and Remote Community Cancer Screening Challenge.

“No surprise, as a nonprofit charity that depends on grants and donations, this is a thrill to have this fund to really advance cancer screening in our rural area,” said Devereaux.

Devereaux says Gateway plans to expand their “layered” cancer screening initiative to pharmacies and nurse practitioners across Huron-Perth.

While more Canadians than ever before are being diagnosed with cancer, largely due to our aging population, more people are surviving cancer than ever before too because of advanced treatments and early diagnosis.

“It’s going to become easier for people to be screened than it ever has been. So, we want to be on top of that new information, and make sure we get it out to our rural people,” said Devereaux.