Jane Moloney is the health care director of the Centretown Community Health Centre.
Jane Moloney sees writing on the wall. She fears that down the road, community health centres such as the one she works at in Centretown will be threatened.
“One of the really unfortunate things that happens with a growing income disparity is the philosophy and mindset that comes behind that, that somehow suggests that people who are poor are to blame, and it’s their own fault,” she says. “Pretty soon, if this carries on . . . the funding that we receive to take care of 'those people' – well, why should we?”
Moloney, chair of the Canadian Association of Community Health Centres and the recently hired health care director for the Centretown Community Health Centre on Cooper Street, is well aware of the challenges her association and her own centre face.
Her list includes: a belief that Canada’s health-care system precludes any need for extra support for the poor, a reluctance to associate social factors with health care, and a squeeze in provincial government funds.
Moloney says it’s possible all these factors could come together to end funding for community health centres. But she’s a firm believer in the model and she’s determined to fight to prove that community centres are worth their costs.
Community health centres sprawl all over the country and are particularly strong in Ontario. They work to provide services to people who might not have access to a regular family doctor, such as immigrants, refugees, and the homeless, and focus on the “social determinants” of health – poverty, addictions, social isolation – that often play large roles in people’s well-being.
Recent studies from the Ontario Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences have indicated that clients of community health centres visit emergency rooms about 20 per cent less often than expected.
Health centres receive funding from provincial governments. The Centretown centre is using these studies to argue their model, which reduces visits to the emergency room through increased screening and prevention, is worth it.
When Moloney began her term as chair of the Canadian association two years ago, she brought with her almost 20 years of experience in health care, starting in New Zealand in 1993. She came to Canada in 2006.
She relocated to Centretown health centre this August, she explains, partly because she was attracted to the strong management that exists at Cooper Street.
For the past few months, she’s been juggling her roles as the spokesperson for Canada’s national association and at the Centretown centre, usually doing her national work on her own time after work, or taking some days to travel to conferences to represent the association.
“She actually represents the organization very well, because she’s very insightful,” says Tim Archer, a member of the national association’s board. “She’s got a good knowledge of the big picture, and at the same time she’s very articulate and can speak very well to all levels.”
As chair of the CACHC, Moloney has helped guide the organization through a restructuring process and has shifted its lobbying efforts. Archer says the national organization’s intensified focus on its value proposition is one of the biggest improvements that has come during Moloney’s time as chair.
“That piece of it has been, I think, probably one of the biggest gaps that existed before, but one of the ones that she’s really worked hard to address. That work is really going to bear fruit.”
Says Moloney: “I wouldn’t do this work if I wasn’t an optimist. There are times when you look at our current (federal) government and some of the policies that have been put in place… and it can feel quite pessimistic. But there is always that feeling in the back of your mind that there’s always a sort of a pendulum swing, a balancing of the scales.”