Rural Health Past Present Future
Rural Health Past Present and Future was a project marking the 75th anniversary of the NHS working with communities in Shetland and Inverness to explore different memories and archives of what healthcare was like locally, hosting conversations across generations, and then looking to the future to craft a vision for rural health services to come!
This project is led by a team including Dr Maxinne Connolly-Panagopoulos, Mari Todd, Dr Andrew Jennings, Evelyn Anderson and John Hunter from the University of the Highlands and Islands; Professor Sarah-Anne Munoz, Professor Gill Hubbard; Malcolm Innes from both UHI and Bressay Development Ltd; and Lewis Hou and Iris Henzel from Science Ceilidh. It is also supported by local artists Heather Christie (Shetland) and Bonnie from Inverness OPEN arts (Inverness). This project is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
Though the project in it’s current form is finished, see below how you can find out more and see the exhibitions developed
Shetland
In Shetland we’ve hosted conversations in Vidlin, Bressay, Skeld, Lerwick and Burra between November 2023 and February 2024.
The resulting exhibition will be at the Lerwick Library from 17 - 19 June and then at the Northlink Ferry Terminal from 20 June for a few weeks.
If you missed our conversations but want to share photographs or archives of your memories of healthcare in the past or present, or ideas of the future, please feel free to add these to our map here, join our Vidlin Past Present Future facebook group, or send directly to lewis@scienceceilidh.com.
The exhibition features responses to a short creative writing exercise - Story Stems - with colleagues from UHI. If you’d like to give it a try, share your ideas about the future of rural healthcare in your area: bit.ly/storystemshetland
Inverness
In Inverness we are working with Inverness Open Arts to run workshops including with Highland Seniors and local UHI students. The celebratory ceilidh was held on the 22nd May at WASPS, Inverness!
Keep in touch with us to find out what will happen next.
If you are interested in themes around rural health and wellbeing, you may also be interested in our Community Knowledge Matters network which is a free network for communities, researchers and practitioners supporting mental health and wellbeing across the Highlands and Islands. You can find out more here, and also inform how rural health and wellbeing research can happen with our Priority Setting Survey (deadline 30 June, with a chance to win £50 local shopping vouchers)