By Marc Aubin
Lowertown is known for its earl history as home to a large part of Ottawa’s working class. But there have always been a handful of professionals living among us. At first it was out of convenience and due to ethnic divides, but nowadays, it is more by choice. Dr. Vera Etches, the City of Ottawa’s Medical Officer of Health, is among those who have chosen to adopt Lowertown as their home. In fact, she lives in the house of one of Lowertown’s former doctors and just a stone’s throw from the first hospital opened in the city.
It was just three years ago that Vera hit the headlines: “Vera Etches becomes Ottawa’s first female medical officer of health”. The April 2018 article in the Ottawa Citizen described her initial interest in public health coming out of her experiences working as a medical student in Malawi. Those early experiences in Africa brought home the realization that health is part of a set of interrelated problems. The availability of healthy food, mental health support, stable housing and many other things contribute to overall health.
Vera joined the Ottawa health unit in 2009, becoming deputy medical officer of health in 2014. She had previously held similar roles in Sudbury, Ontario. Originally from a small town in northern British Columbia, she studied at BC universities, and obtained additional qualifications at the University of Toronto. Her biography indicates that she focuses on addressing rural, Indigenous, and urban health issues, and that she’s passionate about building bridges between the private, public and volunteer sectors.
I first met Vera as a member of the board of the Lowertown Community Association. She joined soon after arriving in Ottawa. Her personality was similar to the one you see on television, a kind and informed presence. She was not someone who wore her credentials on her shoulders, but shared her expertise whenever it would be helpful to our community. She did this while married and working at the health unit, , with two children a few years later, as well as undertaking significant renovations to her heritage home.
As the first female medical officer of health in Ottawa, Vera joins a long history of women leading in medicine in Ottawa. Many know the story of the mother superior, Sister Bruyère, whose congregation of Sisters of Charity founded Ottawa’s first hospital on St. Patrick Street next to the cathedral. However, it took a while before women overcame barriers to becoming doctors. According to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, the overall proportion of female physicians has grown from 11% in 1978 to 41% in 2017. Vera’s appointment to chief medical officer is indicative of this new recalibration of representation.
Like most social services of the 19th century, medicine was a private matter and one that was to be funded through charity. Lowertown was a crowded and low-income place at that time, and sanitary conditions were a problem. People forget that the nuns worked for free to help care for the sick in our city. Thankfully, medicine has come a long way since those days and is now recognized a right that should be supported through public funding. However, as many of us in Lowertown see on a daily basis, there are still people, like the homeless, that suffer from very complex issues, including many related to health. That requires the City to have a plan to deal with the overall health of its citizens.
Vera is at the centre of Ottawa’s public-health strategies. Ottawa Public Health is the lead organization in the city in the provision of health programs and services. Among its files are health promotion, the opioid crisis, the health response to the legalization of cannabis, floods and infection control, not to mention the current Covid-19 epidemic. As many of you know, Vera is the leading public face at the municipal level here in Ottawa. The experience she has gained throughout her entire career in medicine and her commitment to cooperative approaches have left us in good hands as we face this challenge.