Your Health Centre: offering more than you may think

By Sue McIntyre, Executive Director, Bowen Island Community Health Centre

Welcome to the first in a series of stories from our team at the Bowen Island Community Health Centre.

One reason for this series is to ensure the community knows everything we now offer at the Health Centre. Another is to introduce the people who are doing it. Some of them you may know as friends or neighbours – we are proud to say almost every member of the team lives on Bowen.

I’m happy to kick things off with an overview from my perspective as Executive Director, a role I took on just over a year ago.

Over the past year, the Health Centre has continued to expand both the care available on Bowen and the team delivering it. Our primary care team has grown to include four family physicians – Dr. Lindsay Downey, our Medical Director, Dr. Lydia Gibson-Boyce, Dr. Mike Norbury and Dr. Stephanie Shorter – and our nurse practitioner, Laura FitzGerald. As this team has grown, so too has the number of Bowen residents with access to ongoing primary care. Since opening our doors, we have attached more than 2200 Bowen residents to a family physician or nurse practitioner at the Health Centre. And with our physician capacity growing again this September, we expect to be able to attach even more Bowen residents.

But as a Community Health Centre, primary care is about more than regular appointments with your family physician or nurse practitioner. Our team has also grown to include three registered nurses, expanding the range of primary care nursing services available on Bowen Island – from wound care and dressing changes to diabetes education and support with managing hypertension and other chronic conditions. We have grown from having no clinical counsellors to three counsellors who together fill one full-time role, and recently a full-time social worker joined our team. Our three Community Support Coordinators also help people facing health and social challenges navigate services and connect with resources that can make living on Bowen easier.

We also provide urgent primary care for island residents and visitors whose health concerns need timely attention but do not require special diagnostics or the resources of an emergency department. Over the past year, we have provided more than 1500 urgent primary care appointments.

This spring, we introduced a clinical triage system to help people get the right care when urgent health concern arises. Our family physicians and nurse practitioner triage urgent concerns to determine how quickly care is needed and where it can be most appropriately and safely provided. Depending on the situation, we may care for you at the Health Centre or direct you to another service, such as the pharmacy, an Urgent and Primary Care Centre on the mainland, the emergency department, or 911.

Behind all of this are our Medical Office Assistants and administration team, who do a superb job making patients feel welcome, helping them navigate their care, and keeping our busy interdisciplinary team running smoothly.

What may surprise you is just how many other health services are now available here on Bowen. The Health Centre brings a growing range of visiting and community-based services to the island, helping residents access care closer to home without having to leave the island. At
present these include:

• LifeLabs, whose Bowen service we advocated to expand from three to five days a week, with extended appointment hours;
• A VCH Public Health Nurse, who, every two weeks, provides on-site immunizations, vaccine education, and support for children, youth and families.
• A podiatrist, who sees patients monthly;
• A speech and language pathologist, who visits two times a week and works with children up to kindergarten age;
• Optometrists, who come to the Health Centre every few months;
• A foot care nurse, who comes every two months;
• A community pharmacist, who supports people with complex medication needs when referred by their family physician or nurse practitioner; and
• Foundry staff, who support young people experiencing mental health or substance use challenges.

Importantly, almost all these services are available to all Bowen residents regardless of whether they are attached to a family physician or nurse practitioner at the Health Centre.

The Health Centre takes the lead on the bi-monthly Community Lunch at the Legion, helping reduce social isolation, especially among seniors. We administer the Youth Resilience Program, funded by the Community Foundation, which provides young people aged 12 – 29 with access to a professional counsellor. We also look for opportunities to build strong community partnerships and have supported other Bowen health-related organizations in their applications for funding.

And finally, as many of you know, a full-service dental practice and a gym operate as independent businesses on our lower floor – offering even more opportunities to access services that support health and well-being without leaving the island.

Behind this high-level summary are real stories about how your Health Centre is making a difference in people’s lives. In future issues, we hope to share some of those stories and show what the growing range of care and services available here might mean for you, your family, and your neighbours.

None of this would have been possible without the generosity of the people who helped build this great facility. To everyone who donated and those continuing to support us with their donations, thank you. We have come a long way since opening our doors, and we are still only beginning to realize what our Health Centre can mean for the health and quality of life for everyone on Bowen.

Note: This article was originally published on the Bowen Undercurrent on August 21, 2026.