One Extraordinary Woman (with good taste in hats)
This is Thelma. We met a couple of weeks ago. She was looking for a hat for her friend in British Columbia who is going through chemo. She came by my studio and together we came up with this…
Word on the street is that her friend was delighted. But back to Thelma. When she came to pick up her friend’s hat she asked me to make a travel hat for herself. We arranged a pick up at the Kiwi Cafe in Chester. That’s my Wednesday afternoon hang. While my son does theatre, I am forced to drink lattes and knit. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it.
Back tracking to this morning, I opened up Facebook (yes, I’m still doing that, despite my better judgement) and there was Thelma in the middle of this Chronicle Herald article. Seems that Thelma, with the help of other community volunteers, decided to tackle Nova Scotia’s health care crisis by themselves.
They formed an association, bypassed our provincial health authority and are opening up a walk in clinic in Chester. Wait, What? How the heck does one do that? How do you just walk through a mess of red tape and simply do what needs to be done? Well, inquiring minds wanted to know and my opportunity to find out came up this afternoon.
Thelma came to pick up her hat, which, I don’t need to tell you, is absolutely perfect on her. I proceeded to bombard her with 1000 questions. Really, this achievement is astounding.
Apparently, she discovered that with a little bit of leadership people will gladly help. She talked about finding board members with unique skills. There’s a lawyer to help with legalities, a former CBC journalist to help with communication….people are helping in whatever way that they can. Most of the doctors who have signed on live locally. Some are semi retired and are happy to commit to a day or two in the name of helping their community.
But how do they get paid, I asked? They just bill MSI (That’s our provincial health insurance) for their services. I had no idea. I imagined that this big centralized health authority had to be in the picture for that to happen. Well, what do I know? I’m a hat maker. The bottom line is, this team of citizens said, we’ve got a problem. There are hundreds of residents without a family doctor and we have to do something. They tried to go through the regular channels, but when the red tape blocked the way they just did it themselves.
In a perfect world this wouldn’t have to happen, but I’m amazed that it did.
I’m in awe of my seemingly ordinary customers who quietly prove themselves to be extraordinary. What an honour to make a hat for such a worthy head.
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Oh, I almost forgot…LOOK AT THE SWEATER I MADE!
