Veronica Li, Registered Clinical Counsellor, and Stephanie Dang, Registered Dietician, are the founders behind CAYA (Come As You Are) Health Centre. They created the multidisciplinary medical and allied health clinic to support all women, trans, and non-binary individuals–who’ve received an overall lower quality of healthcare, less access to services, and as a result, worse health outcomes.
They started the clinic when they were just 30 years old–but took the risk in building a business that they knew would bridge an important gap and provide quality care that is trauma-informed, sex-positive, weight neutral, and gender-affirming.
When launching CAYA Health Centre, Veronica and Stephanie encountered several barriers. As they explain, “We were continuously told that this had not been done before and that there was no manual to start this type of clinic. It was challenging to get answers and we had to take a trial-and-error approach. We learned a lot from these experiences and hope to one day share these experiences with others so that this type of healthcare will be more accessible to all across the province. Another barrier we encountered was the public's lack of trust in the system. There is a feeling of desperation and urgency for healthcare amongst British Columbians and as we were setting up this clinic, we wanted to ensure that we had thought about each individual patient and client experience. We wanted to rebuild their trust in healthcare–but knew that we couldn’t do it alone. We relied heavily on our community for wisdom and support as we navigated through our opening and continued growth.”
While dedicating themselves to the wellbeing of their own patients, Veronica and Stephanie worked hard to overcome the challenge of starting a business while balancing all of the work involved in setting up a clinic–from seeking funding to managing business regulations and administration. Though it hasn’t been easy, they have no regrets: They say “it's definitely been worth it to bring these services to a much-needed population and work towards a more equitable healthcare system.”