Mossbank's health and wellness is full of surprises

By Tim Jones
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

On Monday, Oct. 17, I and 25 other journalism students made our way to the sleepy little town of Mossbank Sask. Mossbank is located about 40 minutes south of Moose Jaw, just off Highway 2. 

The town has clearly seen better days. Main Street is full of empty store fronts and the buildings are almost all in need of a good coat of paint.
 
But looks can be misleading. One might expect the town residents to be sleepy or jaded but this couldn’t be further from the case. At the rink I was introduced to Donald Smith, our host, and he was as bright, chipper and friendly as anyone you’d meet. I would come to find these to be common traits of the people of Mossbank.
                
After getting a brief orientation to the town I decided to get down to the business of finding out about health and wellness in Mossbank. I knew in advance that Mossbank doesn’t have a hospital and the nearest hospitals were in Assiniboia and Gravelbourg. I ventured forth to see how long a trip it was to both towns.
               
I made my way south along Highway 2. Highway 2 gently wends south through wheat country. The highway is in top condition which will be important in an emergency. The trip to Assiniboia took me about 25 minutes.
                
Gravelbourg lies to the south west of Mossbank. To get there you must leave Highway 2 and jump on to Highway 43. The junction lies about 10 minutes south of Mossbank. Highway 43 is a single-lane highway that at times is in rough condition. The highway curves like a snake as it strikes west from Highway 2. The trip took about 30 minutes.
                
Clearly having to drive 25 to 30 minutes or more to get to a hospital is not an ideal situation. However Mossbank provides a partial solution, with the town’s health and wellness centre. The wellness centre sees to the majority of the town’s health needs. There is a nurse practitioner who comes to town on Mondays and Wednesdays. The nurse is capable of providing many of the basic services that a doctor can.  

The health centre also has rotating lab services once a week. This means that the people of Mossbank are able to get lab work done without leaving the area.
                
But without a full-time doctor in town, the people of Mossbank often have to travel to Moose Jaw, Assiniboia, or Gravelbourg to see a doctor. To make matters worse, the town doesn’t have a drug store. Getting medicine requires a call to the drug stores in either Gravelbourg or Assiniboia. However both stores will mail out prescriptions, so the inconvenience of traveling is lessened.  

The situation isn’t ideal but the people of Mossbank have a realistic view of things. “We’re used to what we have and very grateful for what we have. People that have freshly moved to Mossbank will say that (the health centre) is one of the reasons they moved here. We’re just a small little town so we don’t expect to have full services,” said Sharon Brunt, the health centre’s administrator. 

Health care is only one side of the health and wellness story there is also the town’s recreation activities, from Zumba -a new-aged Latin aerobics routine- to hockey, and curling. 

Curling is one of the most popular activities, with a league of eight to nine teams. At four people per team that’s a whopping 36 people. For a town that has only 498 people, that’s almost 10 per cent of the population. The curling club meets twice a week from November to March. 

“I think there are lots of opportunities (to do sports) for most people. You can usually find something that interests you… I have two young kids as well and I feel there is lots of opportunities for them as well,” said Chris Farris, secretary of the curling club.

This optimism is a defining characteristic of Mossbank. Despite the town’s past struggles and uncertain future, Mossbank manages to be a happy and healthy town.