Fondation de La Côte: a key player in community health :Jorge Castro, director of the FLC, answered questions for Communemag.
How do you think the healthcare system has changed since Covid?
Today, the health system of the whole country is under strain, and our region is no exception. This is echoed in the media almost every day, with particular emphasis on overcrowding in hospital emergency departments linked to increased demand from patients amid a growing shortage of healthcare professionals. This situation is not new, there are many reasons for it, and while some solutions have been put forward to tackle it, they are difficult to put in place in a health system where coordination between different healthcare providers still needs to be improved.
What is the role of Fondation de La Côte in this context?
We want to continue playing a part with a broad community offer for the region via our different entities and in a spirit of innovation. It’s a question of boosting the partnership dynamic, developing new partnerships and pooling our efforts to serve the health of the community and without any bias towards a particular health service.
What is the Fondation actually doing to respond to this situation?
As part of our public mission and as part of in the Vaudois home help and care system (AVASAD), we are going to be among the key players supporting one of the main focuses of this legislature, namely demographic ageing. More particularly, through our Espace Prévention entity, we have hired a project manager for our region who has produced a comprehensive directory of all the activities aimed at seniors in the municipalities. In addition, we have joined forces with the social health centres, or centres médico-socieaux (CMS) to offer collective services to the whole region, such as conferences on preventative medicine and health promotion.
Another pilot scheme has emerged, from a joint venture between all the Vaud CMS, with the La Lignière clinic and the Gland Ville CMS working together to trial a home rehabilitation programme involving different health professionals and aimed at any individual at risk of functional decline. The aim of this project is to restore the sustainable autonomy of the patient, targeting the resumption of significant activities. We will continue to develop this programme across the whole region.
Finally, under a mandate from the canton, the Fondation de La Côte is still responsible for setting up a community emergency response programme for the region. To do this, a mobile emergency team has been set up made up of caregivers who can intervene 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to promote home care and so avoid having to call on hospital emergency services. This is an innovative approach, still relatively unknown to local people, but which aims to help better respond to the long- term challenges of the health system.
In this way, and through our various entities, we are developing an all-round and preventive approach for the patient, thanks in particular to the strong commitment and multi-disciplinary nature of the teams, whose first priority is the patients and their families.