The Dr. Peter Centre Story

There’s a thin line that separates those on the margins of society from the mainstream.

Some people believe that line is actually a wall—one that protects ‘us’ from ‘them’, and that blocks us from seeing the despair and tragedy that lives, struggles and dies on the other side.

But in reality, that line is not a wall, nor is it ever far from any of us, no matter who we are, or where we live.

We know that line very well because we cross it every day. It’s called our front door.

And it opens into a place dedicated to turning that line into the leading edge of progressive health care.

You’ll find our building at the crossroads of Thurlow and Comox. But where we really live is at the intersection of science and compassion. And although our building may only be four storeys high, when it comes to the impact we have made on thousands of lives, and our reputation in the health care community, it casts a long shadow.

Everything we do is based on the simple premise that whatever chaos happens outside our walls, inside here, humanity prevails.

Welcome to the Dr. Peter Centre.

AIDS took away his sight.

But not his vision.

Dr. Peter Jepson-Young was a young, gay Vancouver physician.

He had compassion, bravery, joie de vivre. And AIDS. He chronicled his personal battle with the disease through the Dr. Peter Diaries, a weekly video diary that aired on CBC. Shortly before his death in 1992, he established the original Dr. Peter AIDS Foundation, with the mission of providing comfort care to people living with HIV/AIDS. Dr. Peter shifted public views and brought a human face to a misunderstood and terrifying health crisis. Today, there is a misconception that this crisis has been solved. The reality is that for many of the people we see, HIV is the least of their problems. Addiction, poverty, homelessness, and mental health are all parts of the complex challenges that they, and we, face every day.

Just as HIV/AIDS has evolved, so have we. That’s why our care model is based on Dr. Peter’s belief that it’s not AIDS that you treat. It’s the person.

We provide hope.

We provide a model and concrete actions that bring life to people.

It brings joy, health and healing to a world that has a paucity of it.

Scott Elliott CEO, Dr. Peter Centre

A portal of possibility The front door of the Dr. Peter Centre is a threshold.

When you cross over it, you pass into a place of possibility—a climate of care that offers not only unsurpassed care for its participants, but also ideas that have the potential to transform the way complex health care is delivered around the world.

The Dr. Peter Centre is an outpost on the frontier of progressive health care. And like all frontiers, it is a place of bold discoveries, and harsh, often difficult challenges.

It takes a special kind of person to work here. And it takes an equally brave, resilient, and strong person to be a participant. This is a place where the healing happens on both sides. Here, the participants and care providers make each other better.

Common spaces, with uncommon results Just as our participants span a wide range of needs, the Dr. Peter Centre offers an equally broad spectrum of services, from day health to long-term residential care, keeping them all connected to their community of health.

We have over 500 participants registered in our day health program, with backgrounds that reflect a very diverse section of Vancouver society. In addition to offering two hot meals every day, this program offers a range of therapeutic programs, including art, music, and recreation. Individual and group counselling, including special programs for women and Indigenous people, help address the often multi-layered traumas our participants face.

Our clinical team see over 40,000 health visits per year. Since 2002, the Centre has also been internationally recognized as the first health care facility in North America to integrate supervised injection services into its model of care.

A place to call home In addition to our day health program, the Dr. Peter Centre offers a 24-hour licensed care facility that provides comprehensive medical care for participants with highly complex medical, and often social, issues. For many of our residents, this will be their first stable home in years.

Although the majority of our residents are living with HIV/AIDS, they each have other physical and mental health challenges that keep them from staying healthy. We give them a safe environment to provide both long and shortterm medical stabilization.

Common to all who access our facility is the need to feel safe and accepted—a need that is fulfilled by the community of care that is the Dr. Peter Centre.

DAY HEALTH

OFF-SITE RESIDENCES

LONG-TERM RESIDENTIAL

The Dr. Peter Centre continuum of support reflects the changing needs of our participants at different parts of their life. For example, a participant may start their relationship with us by coming here for our meal program.

They may then join one of our music or art programs, or participate in a group counselling session. A health or wellness issue may emerge that our clinical team can help support them with. If a more complex medical situation may arise, or their living situation changes, we can adapt our care model to accommodate them.

We provide opportunities for people who have had doors closed to them.

They’re not welcome in stores or restaurants.

We walk by them on the street and we avoid eye contact, or look at them with pity, disdain or anger.

That’s the reality, and they know it, and feel it.

Scott Elliott CEO, Dr. Peter Centre

Open arms. Open minds. Open hearts.

The challenges others turn their backs on, we welcome with open arms, open minds, and open hearts. The people some would consider to be the opposite of model citizens are in fact a daily inspiration who have helped us create a bold new model of care.

We are a place where participants can go when the rest of society has turned them away. We provide an oasis where they can sort out the chaos in their lives, on their time, and on their terms. For people who have been given a life sentence of exclusion, this is their place to belong.

It starts with small steps, including the first one taken through our door. That first stable day leads to a stable week, and ultimately, to a more stable life. And if you have a lot of instability in your life, a hot meal goes a long way.

At the Dr. Peter Centre, we welcome and accept everyone for the unique person they are. Here, there is no judgement or stigma, only humanity and respect.

From our staff to our government partners, when it comes to working with people, we are an egalitarian organization.

We treat everyone the same, regardless of their title or stature.

Our ribbon has many shades of red

The red ribbon is a legacy of our origin as an organization founded to provide compassionate care to people living with AIDS. But just as AIDS has evolved and become more complex over the past 25 years, so too have we evolved our care model.

That’s why today, our ribbon has many shades of red, reflecting the complexity of physical, mental and emotion challenges our participants face every day.

Reconciliation & Coming together

Original AIDS red ribbon

Fireweed from Affirmation tapestry Symbol of rebirth

Nootka rose from Affirmation tapestry Symbol of grace & appreciation

Peter’s scarf Original DPC logo colour

It is so easy to pass judgement from a place of comfort and privilege. Now that I am 90 years old, I see things a lot clearer. If I had the problems these boys do, I would probably use drugs too.

Shirley Young Dr. Peter’s mother

The Dr. Peter Model

Over the past 25 years, we have developed a wide range of practices and programs to meet the unique and difficult challenges that our participants face.

Some of these are simply more efficient and cost-effective ways of delivering health and long-term care services. Many more are innovative initiatives that have proven to be highly effective in improving the physical, mental and spiritual well-being of our participants.

Taken together, our collective experience comes together in an operating philosophy built around four key principles.

Love is harm reduction

Meet people where they are

Tend the soul to heal the body

Evidence-based compassion

Meet people where they are

The very name of our organization reflects one of our core principles: the importance of knowing people on a first-name basis. From the moment every participant steps through our door, they are greeted by name. It’s just one of the ways we embrace every person as the unique individual that they are.

We accept everyone in the way they present themselves to us, without judgement. There is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to serving our participants. They are free to make their own choices, on their time and on their terms. They can come and go as they please, dress the way they like, and participate in whichever programs they prefer.

In a world of closed doors, this ability to make their own decisions gives our participants a healthy boost of a uniquely powerful medicine—selfdetermination.

Evidence-based compassion

Our approach to complex care is a carefully tuned balance of head and heart. We are tenacious in our quest to improve the lives of our participants, but compassionate in the way we deliver it.

Everything we do is measured against outcomes, and we constantly evaluate and refine our work to improve them. Our team includes some of the most respected minds in the health care world, and they understand that it takes more than pills and protocols to deal with the multi-layered challenges our participants face.

All our programming is developed in consideration of the social determinants of health—the non-medical aspects of a person’s life that are often overlooked by conventional treatment programs, but that have a major impact on their well-being.

We believe the experience that surrounds the care we provide is as important and effective as the care itself. A hot meal, a warm shower, a clean set of clothes—these are not luxuries, but proven ways of improving the quality of life and health of our participants.

Tend the soul to heal the body

We provide our participants with the best that modern medicine has to offer. But we believe that before you can heal the body, you first need to tend the soul. That’s why we have developed a full range of innovative programs to provide our participants with complete wraparound care.

Our music program gives them a voice. Our art program lets them express themselves. Hot meals nourish their body, while ceremonies like our daily smudging ceremony feed their spirit.

As with everything we do at the Dr. Peter Centre, our goal is to create a safe, welcoming place for people to belong. In the chaos and isolation that is the reality for our participants, we are an oasis of compassion and community.

Love is harm reduction

When you work with underserved people, you hear a lot of fourletter words. Around here, one of them is love. Looking someone in the eye, knowing their name, a gentle touch or a warm hug— these simple acts of kindness have a profound effect on the mental and physical well-being of our participants.

There’s a lot more to harm reduction than just needles and drugs.

Fresh laundry is harm reduction. So is the chance to sit down at a piano. Playing with a dog. Participating in a drum circle.

Having a quiet, cozy corner to read a book. Even something as simple as deciding what kind of juice to have with your breakfast is harm reduction.

There is no single prescription that can break the cycle of addiction, or cure the layered trauma that many of our participants carry with them. Yet of all the treatments we provide, one of the most powerful medicines is love.

If my Ninja Turtle bubble bath doesn’t make me feel better, what chance is there for modern medicine?

Dr. Peter Diary #31

A model of care, created to share Over the past 25 years, the Dr. Peter Centre has created a model for how to work with people with complex illnesses and conditions like HIV, substance use, and mental illness. By removing the barriers that get in the way of treating their medical needs, we have learned many valuable lessons that can be applied to other situations and communities.

Led by our Knowledge Translation & Evaluation team, we have the purpose, passion and talent to drive global conversations. We have already become a trusted partner to national and regional health authorities, who have adopted many of our best practices to improve their systems.

In finding effective ways of addressing some of the most complex social and medical issues society has ever seen, we have become the model for complex health care that is truly unique in the world.

Today, we aren’t just a place. We are a movement.

We stand up for people that society has turned its back on.

Patrick McDougall Director of Knowledge Translation & Evaluation

From innovators to instigators The story of the Dr. Peter Centre is a story of firsts. From the day we opened our doors, we have always done things differently. We live and work on the edge of change, which is why innovation is an essential part of our DNA. As our voice and reputation have grown stronger, so has our ability to inspire other organizations to reimagine the way they work and to improve their outcomes.

We are no longer just innovators, but instigators.

We don’t shy away from having conversations about difficult topics. We push back the boundaries of what is possible by challenging assumptions, deflating stigmas, and erasing the boundaries that separate the people who need care from the places that can best provide it.

We may not have all the answers yet, but we are not afraid or daunted by the size and complexity of the questions, no matter how difficult they may be. We will not always succeed. And if we fail, we will fail well, with courage, dignity and integrity.

Some of the things we do are controversial. We will not always be on the popular side of public opinion. But we will always stand with and for our participants, because what is good for them is ultimately good for society at large.

People come here to feel safe.

Rosalind Baltzer Turje Senior Director of Clinical Programs

The front door to the front line It’s not hard for us to get a clear perspective on the quality of life for the underserved people in our city. All we have to do is look out the window. In the battle against the most difficult health and social care challenges in Canada, we are the front door to the front line.

There is no roadmap for the journey we are on. The bureaucratic challenges are often enormous. Problematic drug use is not glamorous , and our participants can sometimes be difficult to love. But we know that our work makes a real and lasting difference in the lives of the people we serve.

The vast majority of society will be fortunate enough to never need our services. So why should they care about what happens here? Because the problems that will ultimately hit society always hit vulnerable populations first.

In dealing with the health care crisis, we are the first responders. The insights and solutions we discover here have the potential to transform the health care system and enhance the quality of people’s lives across Canada. We create community, and out of community comes stability, for our participants and for society at large. What we do to improve the lives of our participants today, we can do for the public tomorrow.

The energy that is me will not be lost

In the last year of Dr. Peter’s time on earth, he wrote a short piece on what life meant to him. There is no better way to finish this chapter in the story of the Dr. Peter Centre than with his words.

It’s an affirmation that inspires us every day with the vision and courage of the man who gave us our name, our purpose, and our spirit.

I accept and absorb all the strength of the earth to keep my body hard and strong.

I accept and absorb all the energy of the sun to keep my my mind sharp and bright.

I accept and absorb all life force of the oceans to cleanse my body to bring me life.

I accept and absorb all power of the wind to cleanse my spirit and bring me strength of purpose.

I accept and absorb all the mystery of the heavens because I’m a part of that vast unknown.

I believe God to be all these elements and the force that unites them.

From these elements I have come, to these elements I will return, but the energy that is me will not be lost.

CREATIVE

PRINTING

HUMANITY HEALS

drpeter.org