SOMA DALAI

SWITCH volunteers provide after-hours health services.

On Nov. 13, the Student Wellness Initiative Towards Community Health (SWITCH) found itself being discussed in Saskatchewan’s provincial legislature during question period.

SWITCH is a University of Saskatchewan and University of Regina student-run medical clinic located on 20th Street West in Saskatoon.

Saskatoon Riversdale MLA Danielle Chartier asked minister of health Dustin Duncan what the provincial government plans to do to aid the student-run clinic, which has recently been forced to reduce services due to financial limitations.

SWITCH “provides incredibly valuable after-hours health care, clinical and outreach services from the Westside Community Clinic in Saskatoon,” Chartier said. “Until this month, the SWITCH clinic was open three days a week, but financial constraints have forced it to scrap its Saturday clinic. To the minister: what is this government doing to help?”

Duncan responded that the Ministry of Health already provides core funding for SWITCH and that there are meetings planned to discuss a greater input from the government.

The student-run non-profit welcomed the attention, as it looks to the provincial government and the wider community to help overcome financial concerns the clinic has encountered this year.

A group of medical students from the U of S founded SWITCH in 2005. According to Reed Gillanders, a first-year medical student and current chair of SWITCH’s board of directors, the organization “envisions a Saskatoon in which all residents have equal access to health care, nutrition, education and employability skills to better arm them with tools to create opportunities for themselves. SWITCH’s mission is to augment the training of future professionals while improving the health, education and skills of people from Saskatoon’s core communities — ultimately achieving lasting positive change for everyone involved.”

However, this year the clinic has encountered financial difficulties in achieving those aims, causing it to reduce its services to two days instead of the usual three days per week for the months of November and December.

Interviewed via email, Gillanders outlined the impacts of reducing SWITCH’s services.

“Now that SWITCH is not offering its services on Saturdays, the accessibility of non-emergent medical care on the weekends is significantly reduced in Saskatoon’s core communities,” Gillanders wrote. “Over SWITCH’s nine years of service in Saskatoon, our inter-professional medical and outreach services have come to be a big part of the community and temporarily cancelling Saturdays was a difficult but necessary decision to make.”

Gillanders went on to state that the cancellation of shifts is impacting SWITCH’s volunteers as well as its clients.

“When SWITCH was operating three days per week, our volunteers were consistently providing more than enough support to be able to host three shifts,” Gillanders wrote. “Now that we have decided to temporarily reduce our hours, to decrease costs so that SWITCH runs a balanced budget, there is an excess of student volunteers that want to volunteer but can’t because of an insufficient number of volunteer openings.”

Beth Blakely, SWITCH program co-ordinator, wrote in an email to the Sheaf that one of the reasons the organization is experiencing difficulties this year is that it has been successful in making a community impact, but not quite as successful in obtaining core funding from sponsors.

“SWITCH opened in 2005 and since then we have grown to offer a wide variety of after-hour services,” Blakely wrote. “With an expanding organization, our budget also increased. Currently only 15 per cent of our operating budget is covered year to year. As a result, 85 per cent of our funding comes from grants, donations and fundraising, which are short-term, transient forms of funding.”

When asked about whether SWITCH plans on reinstating regular services soon, Blakely wrote that the group is committed to their efforts and plans to approach the possibility again in the future.

“In December we will be re-evaluating our finances to see if it is financially responsible to reinstate Saturday shifts in the New Year. We are committed to providing the highest quality services for our clients and training for our students, which means operating two shifts a week instead of three.”

Hoping to be able to fundraise enough money to resume regular services soon, SWITCH has decided to host its first charity breakfast on Nov. 28 at the Travelodge Hotel. The Saskatchewan Medical Association and the Travelodge will sponsor the event.

In regards to who is attending, Gillanders wrote that invitations have been sent to all of SWITCH’s stakeholders including student volunteers, health-care mentors, alumni, sponsors, and supporters in both Saskatchewan’s post-secondary educational institutions and the provincial government.

Gillanders added that the breakfast is also welcome to whoever would like to support SWITCH. Along with breakfast being served, testimonials will be read from clients in the community about the benefits of SWITCH and donations will be requested.

Those interested in attending SWITCH’s Charity Breakfast can purchase tickets online at www.picatic.com/SWITCHcharitybreakfast. Further information about SWITCH is available at switchclinic.ca.

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Photo: SWITCH/flickr