A Proud Day for Health Care in BC

I'm really proud of my province today. Not only did we institute a Smoking Cessation Program that helps smokers with the cost of quit smoking aids, but we got permission from the Supreme Court of Canada to keep Insite up and running.

This has been a very controversial issue. For those of you not from Vancouver, Insite is the province's first legal safe injection site. It is based on the harm reduction approach to health care - meaning that, unlike most public services for addicts, it isn't about getting people to quit using (though it does provide information and support for anyone who does want to get clean). It's focused on dealing with the reality of people's existing lifestyles and mitigating the risks associated with it - which, in this case, means giving users clean syringes and a safe and supervised site with medical professionals on staff.

Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin says, and I agree:

As a social sciences student, I have come to see great benefits to these sorts of programs. Not only in terms of making a risky activity safer, but also in reaching out to sectors of the population who are routinely stigmatized and alienated from any form of health care and support. It gives people a starting point to get help - whatever that help may be (needle exchange, housing, counseling, medical care, etc.).

I'm not so proud of our Health Minister, Leona Aglukkaq, however. Along with the rest of the conservative (*assholes* ahem), she was in favour of doing away with the clinic, saying:

Yeah, it's great if you can find a way to prevent people from becoming addicts. I'm all for that. But what about all the people who are already addicted? What do you suggest is done about them? Just ignore them and hope they go away? That's putting on a pretty big set of blinders, there, Leona.

I'm hopeful that this ruling has set an important precedent - not just in terms of drug law exemptions for similar facilities, but in terms of a general approach to community health care. It says that we're all important; and we all deserve to be counted into the health care system.

Here's more info on the ruling and on Insite.

The Human Pretzel Experiment

My mother taught yoga when I was growing up, so I've been doing it for a lot of my life. The way she tells it, yoga is the reason she can even walk today. She is quite accident prone, which, when mixed with some bad luck, means she's had a lot of injuries over the course of her life. Including going through the windshield of a car (she says she was brushing glass out of her hair for weeks) and falling down a flight of cement stairs, nearly breaking her back. Ouch.

She discovered yoga after the stairs incident, and began to slowly rehabilitate herself with it. Though at first she had trouble even standing, over time she was able to regain full use of her body - though she's had back problems ever since.

I started going to yoga class with her when I was about 11. At first I resented it (though let's face it, at that age I would have resented going on a five star cruise with her, that's pretty much just how pre-teens and teens feel about hanging out with their parents. They'd rather die.) but eventually I came to enjoy it.

I've done it periodically ever since, but when I managed to injure my own back, it was one of the first things to go. It's taken two years post-surgery for me to get to a point where I feel confident enough about my body's abilities to so much as set foot in a yoga class. It wasn't easy to face up to that challenge - mostly because I was scared to discover just how much flexibility and muscle tone I have lost in the last five years.

Thanks to a work colleague and a discounted yoga pass, I'm back in class. And I was pleasantly surprised that my body managed to do more than I expected. I can do most of the poses - thought I need to modify a few - and, most importantly, I'm not in pain if I don't push too hard.

I think the most valuable lesson I've learned through all the pain and frustration is to listen to my body. It doesn't matter what the teacher is telling us to do. It doesn't matter that the yoga girl in front of me is doing the splits against the wall. I'm going to sit there sweating it out to get my head halfway to my knees, and I'm going to feel damn proud of myself for it, too.

The most important thing was to learn where my own boundaries are, and to respect them. I now feel better than I have in years and actually look forward to yoga class twice a week. For anyone in the Vancouver area who is looking for a good studio for people recovering from injuries, I'd recommend checking out Treloar. Maybe I'll see you there!