For the past ten years, the Gateway Centre of Excellence in Rural Health has been changing health and well-being in the Huron, Bruce, Grey, and Perth counties. On May 2, 2019, community leaders, volunteers, health practitioners, and researchers marked the 10th anniversary of the Gateway and its achievements.

Gateway is a not-for-profit corporation with charitable status striving to improve the health and quality of life of rural residents through research, education and communication. ​​Over the past 10 years, Gateway has delivered health and well-being initiatives to strengthen their region, including health care practitioner recruitment, rural pharmacy, and mental health supports. Gateway was established to ensure healthier rural residents actively contributing to healthy local economies and requiring less health care over time, generate world class research & teaching facilities that attract a wide range of health care professionals to practice in this rural area, and to create a rural model for Canada that successfully links health research, education, evidence-based practice and economic development through innovation. ​You can read more about Gateway through their website: www.gatewayruralhealth.ca.

To celebrate the achievements of Gateway, graduate students in the Economic Development class with Dr. Ryan Gibson undertook a socio-economic impact assessment based on Gateway’s activities. Over the past four months, Ryan Haines, Naomi Harris, Louis Helps, Koren Lam, Sarah Parish, MC Ourlaine Pashley, Matt Rapke, Niva Shrestha, and Rachel Singer worked with financial, organization, and project data to constructed an impact assessment. During the 10th anniversary celebration Dr. Gibson and Louis Helps shared highlights from the socio-economic impact report. The analysis clearly demonstrated the economic and social value of Gateway and their activities to the region. A copy of the report will be available shortly.

Check out some of the social media from the anniversary event in Goderich.