After drawing more than 100 people to a rally last night (May 10), the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre’s Power of Women Group is planning to protest again today (May 11) the closure of a health centre in the neighbourhood.

Vancouver Coastal Health shut down the Health Contact Centre, located on the first floor of the Roosevelt Hotel, on May 3, saying it duplicated services provided elsewhere in the community.

Today, protesters will gather at 4:30 p.m. outside the women’s centre at 302 Columbia Street.

“The plan is to get it reinstated,” group coordinator Harsha Walia told the Straight today via cellphone.

Yesterday’s rally saw protesters march from the women’s centre to Main and Hastings streets. At that intersection, a seated human circle held up trolley bus traffic for over an hour and a half—spanning rush hour from 4:30 p.m. to around 6 p.m.

When the protest wrapped up, those present vowed to return.

“Most of the women who are members of the women’s centre are affected by the closure of the Health Contact Centre,” Walia said early on during the rally. “It is emergency medical services, which is critical, because there are no other services at nighttime in the Downtown Eastside. Vancouver Coastal Health is saying it’s a duplication of services, but most of the other services only exist in the daytime, like the community clinics.”

Walia said the Health Contact Centre should be made a permanent facility.

“There needs to be medical services at night, and there is also no community drop-in at night,” Walia said. “That’s the other aspect of the Health Contact Centre—it was a drop-in at nighttime.”

Elaine Durocher, another member of the Power of Women Group, said during the protest that she believes the centre had provided a valuable service since it was opened in 2001.

“I haven’t used the contact centre, but many of the women who came into women’s centre to have lunch on a daily basis said they needed that place late at night, to go to the bathroom,” Durocher said, standing in the crosswalk with a megaphone at last night’s action. “Instead of an ambulance, you can go there to dress your wounds. They would give you hot coffee. If you had a foot infection, they would give you a foot bath and do good things like that.”

The Health Contact Centre cost around $500,000 a year to operate, according to Vancouver Coastal Health.

The Health Contact Centre protest kicks off.

The rally occupies Main and Hastings streets.