Filmmaker Calls For Northern Health Stories
Tuesday, October 06, 2009 at 13:48
A Saskatchewan-based “digital storyteller” says she wants to give northern patients a chance to have their voices heard by the medical community.
Vonni Widdis is a filmmaker who, with the support of Sask Health, has spent the last year making short films about individual patients’ experiences — and she is now looking for stories from northerners.
Widdis says she’s been thrilled to find that health professionals are not only receptive, they are “hungry” for the stories her films document — and the films are being used to re-shape ideas about medical care, from the college classroom to the boardroom.
“They’re showing these films in rooms where policy is being developed, and it puts the patient and family and client right in the room with them (policy developers), so that you never lose focus of who you’re doing this on behalf of, who these policies are to be on behalf of,” she says.
Widdis says that having these stories documented is equally important to the patients and families who help make them — and she says one of the most gratifying parts of her job is watching the films with them.
“I’m weeping, they’re weeping, and you can watch the healing start, because they’ve been heard. They’ve had a chance to say what they wanted to say,” she says.
If you are interested in getting involved with this project, call the Northern Health Strategy office in Prince Albert.