Home - ACCESS Health Centre

Camosun, Conservatory & Vic High R&B Benefit raises $700

The Victoria Conservatory of Music and the Vic High R&B band are teaming up with Camosun College students for the ACP Concert Series, a benefit for the Access Health Centre. The concerts, held in February, raised $700 for the Access Health Centre.

Katrina Jensen, executive director of AIDS Vancouver Island, accepts donation from Camosun Student Brett Blair

A special thanks goes out to all those who volunteered their time to make the concert series a success.

Access, Health, Art and Community

Twenty-four works of art from the University of Victoria's Art Collection are on display at the Cool Aid Community Health Centre. Each room in the clinic features a different work of art, which will remain at Access Health in perpetuity; the pieces were selected in consultation with Dr. Carolyn Butler-Palmer, UVic’s Williams Legacy Chair, and her students in UVic’s History in Art department. This art installation is part of a larger project that examines the use of art for community building.

Victoria - October 12, 2010 - After a full year of service at their new location at 713 Johnson Street in the Access Health Centre, partners Victoria Cool Aid Society and AIDS Vancouver (AVI) have much to celebrate. Together, well over 1,500 more persons are receiving respectful and effective health care and social services than could be served at the old locations. As well, a range of improved services, from group medicine to 8,000 nutritious meals for Victoria’s most marginalized citizens, have been possible with the new space and equipment.

“We knew that Access would mean an improvement in people’s lives,” said Irene Haigh-Gidora, manager of community health services for Cool Aid. “But we underestimated the additional number of people we would be able to serve and are pleased with the positive synergies of several agencies providing complementary services under one roof.”

A complete services and statistics summary is found in the enclosed materials. Here are a few facts from the first year of operation at the Access Health Centre:

510 new patients welcomed at the Cool Aid Community Health Centre
76 new volunteers helping deliver AIDS Vancouver Island programs
5,301 dental encounters at the Cool Aid Dental Clinic (up 1,570 over last year)
20 AVI support groups and workshops monthly; focussed on prevention and health programming
34,677 medical and dental encounters in the first year of operation (up 5,638)
8,000 nutritious meals served at the AVI café