Love of community is something that is almost palpable in Smithers, BC.

Whether you’re on the slopes of Hudson Bay Mountain, buying beans at Bugwood Coffee or looking through stacks of cards and CDs from local artists at Mountain Eagle Books, you have no doubt that community is important to the people who live there.

And that love for community is tangible when you speak to the health teams that work there about why they came and why they stay. It is also key to what could be called the “fairy dust” that allows Smithers, a 14-hour drive from Vancouver, to continue to be the busiest low-risk delivery site in BC.

It was the community itself that drew Dr. Sheila Smith to the town nearly 20 years ago.

The family physician, who has a primary care clinic but also does obstetrics at Bulkley Valley District Hospital, said one of the reasons she came to Smithers was for the outdoor lifestyle it afforded.  The amenities, like the ski hill, swimming pool and airport, were also a big draw.

For Dr. Kate Niethammer, the town is even more significant in her life: it is where she grew up and she is proud to call it home. Dr. Niethammer, who is also a family physician with obstetrical training, says: “I always say to people, whatever your passion is or whatever your hobbies are, you probably can find someone in Smithers that has that.”

That ability to find your community within the community is part what makes recruitment and retention of health care teams in Smithers easier.

“If you are able to enjoy things outside of work, it makes work more enjoyable too,” explains Dr. Niethammer. “So then people stay. So then you’re never the only person on, so there’s always support for you.”

While physician staffing levels have been fairly steady in Smithers, especially in comparison with surrounding communities, that didn’t necessarily translate into a stable maternity program for the area.

Following the pandemic, the team went through a period of nursing staff instability and low morale, and they realized they needed something extra­—that’s where the Rural Obstetrical and Maternity Sustainability Program (ROAM) and its sister program, the Rural Surgical and Obstetrical Network (RSON, now folded into ROAM) stepped in.

Laurel Menzel, the Rural Coordination Centre of BC’s Local Network Coordinator with the ROAM program says being able to do a proper survey of the team’s needs helped to bring the change that stabilized the team.

The team was able to track data on the types of work the maternity team was carrying out, and the extra things they were doing like calling in nurses from other wards and paying overtime, and it helped them verify that the missing piece of the puzzle was more nursing support.

They were able to present their data to Northern Health in order to make the case to bring on a second nursing line—which means essentially having a second maternity nurse available 24/7.

Their case was accepted, and the change was a major victory for the team.

Laurel says: “I think that ripple effect is still felt, and it has created way higher job satisfaction across the team. There were some morale issues before that was taken care of, but people are now in a much better place.”

Dr. Niethammer says it was really beneficial to have ROAM and RSON support so they could ensure the data tracking and project management was more structured.

She says it’s also helpful that Smithers is a small team and everyone was on board to make the changes.

“That’s kind of a benefit of a smaller team, you have fewer people to agree to buy in, so more gets done faster.”

Dr. Niethammer agrees that there are ripple effects to having a stable team where everyone is happy. “No one’s feeling overworked, and so then it still allows us to be passionate about doing our big drills and doing our workshops and not just surviving work and getting through.”

The Rural Obstetrical and Maternity Sustainability Program (ROAM) is an RCCbc program funded by the Joint Standing Committee on Rural Issues. It provides funding for all rural maternity teams and the smallest surgical teams in rural British Columbia. The program improves overall health system access and function by stabilizing, supporting and enhancing the delivery of quality maternity and surgical care to rural communities and Indigenous Peoples in BC.