Operation Remote Immunity
How being part of a rural immunization program is forging new learnings and friendships.
Dr. Jane Cox is a member of the Church of the Ascension in Sudbury, a member of the National Church’s Public Witness for Social and Ecological Justice Committee, and a retired family physician. Recently she and her husband Gary Bota applied and were chosen with 78 others to participate in Operation Remote Immunity whose task it was, under ORNGE Paramedic leadership, to immunize residents in the Kashechewan and Attawapiskat communities along the James Bay coast against Covid-19.
Sarah Herst is a first year medical student at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (Thunder Bay site). Sarah is in the middle of her two week experience immunizing residents in the Wapekeka Reserve, flying daily to this community from Thunder Bay. This week she is vaccinating in the community of Mishkeegogamang.
While the primary purpose of their trip was vaccinations, both Dr. Cox and Sarah encountered so much more in their travels including true northern hospitality and new learnings about the communities and people they visited. One of the hosts for Dr. Cox’s team was the Rev. Canon Norm Wesley from the Diocese of Moosonee.
Read their first hand accounts of the experience: https://www.anglican.ca/news/operation-remote-immunity/30032883/
More on this story on p.2 of the March 2021 Anglican Journal