The Hope Health Initiative is taking another step forward, and shifting its focus to make a post secondary education institution in the valley a reality.
Hope College remains at the heart of Hope Health Ventures, and they are continuing to look at using the St. Anthony’s School in Riverside after the school moves to its new facility on North Dinosaur Trail.
However, Jon Ohlhauser, project leader, says other branches of the vision, including Hope Clinic and Hope Research, are very important.
“We are waking up some brands we had initially identified about a year ago. For the last year we focused on the college brand, but we always had the clinic and the research brand as part of the overall strategy,” said Ohlhauser.
He said there are opportunities to move forward with the clinic and research components.
“We always thought our path forward would be to start the college, get it going, then start the clinic, then start the research centre. We may change the order of that,” said Ohlhauser.
Part of that forward momentum is to generate financial support for the initiative.
“The province isn’t going to start a publically funded college in Drumheller, we’ve asked for that for 30 years. So if we are going to start a college, yes we need that start-up support and we are very grateful for the folks pledging, but we have to have this sustainable on its own, and one of the ways towards that sustainability is to have additional revenue streams.”
The research and the clinic are two possible revenue streams that could support the college, and the venture is looking at moving forward those fronts.
Ohlhauser explains the spectre of a profit clinic in the health care industry in Alberta is certain to raise eyebrows.
“There are other ways a clinic can support a college, it can provide placements for training and we want it to do that, but it also needs to, somewhere along the line, make a cash transfer that helps the college function,” said Ohlhauser.
They have found an opportunity to focus on naturopathic health care, which would not conflict with publicly funded delivery.
“Our philosophy is that naturopathics, we believe, are best understood as they complement (mainstream healthcare),” said Ohlhauser. “There are some perspectives in the health world that view naturopathics as alternative… we want to respect the care and advances that mainstream has to offer, but acknowledge that there are some natural treatments that can complement and augment.”
He said alternative medicine involves a large array of care and treatment. Interestingly enough it is most widely accepted in Western Canada, and it is growing.
In Alberta he explains the larger urban centres are well served by naturopathic care. There is an opportunity for the Hope Clinic to serve a wide region.
“When you look at Drumheller and points east and northeast from here, that is a region that is under served from a naturopathic standpoint,” said Ohlhauser.
He says they have discovered new technology that would allow this area to be served.
“We have some technology we have access to that has been developed in the Untied States that would allow us to have a base here in Drumheller where the care given by a naturopathic doctor would be done in person, but the care that could be delivered remotely could be done through two-way video. So we could build our capacity to be able to afford a clinical staff based upon certain days of the week actually delivering care through the technology in other communities.”
By establishing the clinic he said it would support the formation of the college with more than just a revenue stream.
“I think there would be some additional momentum if we could establish and begin to deliver on the clinical side, which would create additional synergies, plus there would be administrative support additionally to provide for the development of the college component,” said Ohlhauser.
Hope Health is planning an open house for residents on February 23 to update the public on its recent developments.
