Entering into its eighth decade of existence in the heart of Winnipeg, Mount Carmel Clinic continues to thrive like the steady heartbeat of all who work within its walls.
Established in 1926 as a clinic for Jewish immigrants, Mount Carmel was fashioned as a means for those in the isolated North End to access health services. Eventually it evolved from an ethnically based clinic to one that became more oriented to serving the needs of the surrounding community. This latter push was under the aggressive direction of Anne Ross, a passionate nurse who saw the desperate need for a more “whole” clinic.

Ross believed that to improve someone’s health, you couldn’t focus solely on the physical hardships, but that you had to factor in all the contributing aspects: family, friends, stress, life in general – that immediate surroundings impacted their health as much as any physical ailments.

Since then there have been many changes to the clinic as a whole. There are more services, more staff, more space, a new location, and even a new executive director, Betty Edel.

Edel is so new in fact, that at the time of writing this she had only been at her post for six weeks. However, it is obvious from the passion in her voice that she has found her place at the clinic.

Born and raised in the inner city, Edel has spent the last 28 years of her life in the community that this clinic is devoted to. She has seen the hardships that people in the core face firsthand, and believes in what the clinic stands for.

“I like the population health perspective, like connecting peoples culture, peoples homes, peoples sense of safety, peoples employment. Everything is connected to health, and it’s about being political, about being pro-active, it’s about not defining your physical being, so it’s not about fragmenting you, it’s about actually looking at you as a whole person,” explains Edel.

Another one of the distinctive qualities about Mount Carmel Clinic is the number of women who work there. Though there are some men, the clinic staff and the foundation board are made up primarily of females.

Most of them are advocates of one cause or another, whether it be midwifery, foot care, dental care, community health, or population health, but all seem to have made the same commitment to the community in which they work, and some, reside.

Glenda Birney-Evans, executive director of the Mount Carmel Clinic Foundation shares her views on the abundance of women working both at the clinic, and the foundation: “They represent a number of professions that are care-giving professions, that have traditionally been options for women – physicians, dentists, physiotherapists, midwives, accountants – there is just an incredible wealth of well-educated women who are really setting the bar high for their professions, and some very influential and accomplished women on both the boards – Mount Carmel and the foundation.”

Today the clinic offers a variety of services to those who need them most, and has made many advances in the care it provides. It currently runs a teen clinic, a footcare clinic, a diabetes wellness clinic, a perinatal program, and offers primary care, nursing services, counseling services, and diagnostics, including a lab, x-ray department and pharmacy, as well as countless other services.

There are also a variety of children’s services available, consisting of a day hospital, toy and book lending library, and the Anne Ross Day Nursery, named for the woman who had such an impact on the clinic. The nursery was built in 1985 and has since been upgraded to meet the requirements of children with special needs. It provides subsidized, licensed child care for 45 children, ages ranging from 18 months to six years.

Open weekdays year round, the nursery provides nutrition programs, including meals and snacks, provides individual programming for those with special needs, therapeutic services, has a facility and outdoor play area, and transitions children with special needs to appropriate programs upon entering school, among other things.

Besides the services offered at the clinic, they offer a host of community services, some of which take place at the clinic building, and others at locations throughout the community. Services include a multicultural wellness program, community development, parenting-student support, a solvent user group, an FASD program, several focus groups, and Sage House.

Sage House is a street women’s health, outreach and resource service, providing a broad variety of services to women and transgenders living as women. Sage House offers health education and medical care on site at the drop-in house at 422 Dufferin Ave, and is a safe, supportive, welcoming environment where meals and laundry are readily available.

From the growth of the clinic, the increase in the number of people that utilize its services, and the increasing support from individuals, groups and the government, it’s clear that what’s being done at the clinic is indeed making an impact on the community it serves.

Birney-Evans sums it up best, “If you’re really committed to what you’re doing, there is every opportunity to do it and to make a difference, or to try and make a difference.”

To learn more about the clinic, please visit www.mountcarmel.ca, or call 582-2311.

Established in 1998, the Mount Carmel Clinic Foundation is a community fundraising organization created to support the clinic. They work to sustain and advance the research, programming and capital development in programs and services of the clinic.

Three years ago, the neighbouring CIBC at 888 Main offered its former bank building to the clinic. This gift jump-started the foundation’s plan to undertake a $5.5 million capital campaign to upgrade and expand the clinic’s facilities. It also provided the drive to develop a plan to renovate the former bank, retrofit the existing clinic, and construct a link from the renovated bank building and the Anne Ross Day Nursery to the clinic. The plan also provides room for the improvement of the primary care, community development initiatives and early childhood development programs.

In 2006-2007, there were more than 139,000 points of contact at the clinic, including over 13,000 physician visits, 81,000 patient encounters with clinic nurses, 36,557 prescriptions filled, over 3,500 dental visits and over 1,200 cross cultural counseling sessions.

The foundation relies on the generosity of those in the community who believe that the programs and services of Mount Carmel Clinic can help transform peoples’ lives. They are always looking for new and innovative ways to fundraise and bring awareness to the rest of the city, about the needs right there in its heart.