Seniors' health care big priority for Delta independent candidate

Delta has one independent candidate running in the upcoming federal election.

Hong Yan Pan, also known as Melody Pan, has been living in Lower Mainland Canada since 1998, and has been a North Delta resident for the past six years.

She’s a registered nurse.

Her website notes she has a Master of Science in Nursing in Leadership, Critical care and Nephrology nursing certificates.

She says she enjoys volunteering and serving the community and is passionate about environment protection, gender inequality, domestic violence prevention, animal protection, culture and diversity safety and senior services.

She notes that in 2014 she helped to preserve a five-acre green space attached to Richmond’s old Stevenson Secondary for public use.

She also notes that, in collaboration with her nursing colleagues and a professor at Trinity Western University, she was part of a team that made a submission to the federal government to provide nursing voices on senior’s issues in Canada.

She told the Optimist in a phone interview that not much was accomplished by the government since then, which is why she chose to run in this election to raise those issues once more, including the state of seniors’ homes and how they were particularly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I was thinking that if we had some voice, we could use all our colleagues’ important collective wisdom to help our seniors and transform the healthcare system,” she said. “I’m not a fan of privatization and I’m a big supporter of universal health care, but I’m thinking that we can achieve something.”

She added the shortened campaign will be a challenge.

Pan ran for the Delta school board in the 2018 municipal election.

Pan will be running against the Conservatives Garry Shearer, Liberal Carla Qualtrough, Green candidate Jeremy Smith, New Democrat Monika Dean and the People’s Party of Canada’s Paul Tarasenko.

Election day is Sept. 20.