GUELPH POLITICAST REPEAT - The Family Health Team Story

For the second part of our two-week break here on the Guelph Politicast, we're going to reach back to this past spring. Since the start of the pandemic, the local medical officer of health has been regular guest on the podcast with six different appearances, but there has been someone else whose contributions to the local COVID fight needs to be acknowledged, and he appeared on the podcast in March.

On the one-year anniversary for the start of the pandemic locally, it seemed right to mark the contributions of the Guelph Family Health Team. They were the ones that quickly set-up and managed Guelph's COVID-19 testing site, and when the vaccine started rolling out, they helped establish clinics at the University of Guelph and the Linamar/Skyjack facility on Woodlawn Road.

Basically, the success of the local vaccination has had a lot to do with the Guelph Family Health Team, and in the last few weeks they've been standing down those vaccination efforts with the closure of the two mass vaccination clinics they were running. While the threat of the Delta Variant is real, Guelph and area have been almost supernaturally successful at the quick distribution of vaccines. But how did we get here?

This repeat of the podcast features Ross Kirkconnell, the executive director of the Family Health Team, and he will talk about how the team got involved in pandemic planning, how they’ve been balancing that with their primary patient care. Kirkconnell will also talk about how Guelph’s good social fabric helped make the pandemic response easier, and how it’s proving why integrated healthcare matters. And finally, he will discuss the vaccine rollout, and what lessons we should learn from the events of the last year.

So let’s talk again about pandemic management on this week’s repeat of the Guelph Politicast.

You can learn more about the Guelph Family Health Team at their website and you can also find them easily on social media. Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health is winding down their mass vaccination clinics this month, and the remaining clinics including the West End Recreation Centre, will close on August 20. If you still need a first or second shot, you can show up at any one of those sites without an appointment.

***The Guelph Politicast will return with new episodes on August 24.

The host for the Guelph Politicast is Podbean. Find more episodes of the Politicast here, or download them on your favourite podcast app at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Spotify.

Also, when you subscribe to the Guelph Politicast channel and you will also get an episode of Open Sources Guelph every Monday, and an episode of End Credits every Friday. 

Photo Credit: The Guelph Family Health Team's Twitter.