Sanguen Health Centre has been providing easier access to health services for marginalized groups in Waterloo Region by way of their community health vans since December 2015.
The vans provide nursing services, naloxone kits, emergency contraception, clothing and even things like testing for sexually transmitted infections and supportive counselling.
The program has grown dramatically on the back of federal funding for the past two years, with increased staff and more vans in Waterloo Region as well as services reaching Wellington County, but now that is set to come to an end.
Executive Director at Sanguen, Dr. Chris Steingart, described how effective the vans have been over the past 7 years.
"I think it's hard to underestimate the impact of this program in the communities," said Steingart in an interview with CityNews 570. "It's an initial point of contact into so many other services that are available to folks."
He added that he knew the day would come where the program would lose its funding, but that doesn't mean that the team at Sanguen won't fight to keep it alive.
"Would I have liked to [the funding] extended? Absolutely! But by no means does this mean that we give up on it," explained Steingart. "We knew it was a two-year grant. There was always hope that these kind of grants get extended. Sometimes they do, often they don't and this is the process that we go through. We use that time to establish and grow the program and then if it looks like we need to look elsewhere to keep it going then that's what we do and that's what we're in the process of doing now."
Steingart said that in the meantime, while they search for funding, they will offer reduced services with less available hours and staff.
"Our hope is to not only to maintain the service that we have now, we know the community needs this to grow, so that's what we're looking to do."
