Meet MJ Harris
“My hope is that every person, regardless of their identity or lived experiences, has a place in our healthcare system to feel safe, respected, and understood”.
We are delighted that MJ has joined as Island Health’s new Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. MJ will be integral in embedding DEI practices across the organization, with a particular focus on medical staff. MJ will be the key point of contact with program and department medical leaders across the organization, partnering to educate, guide and champion behaviours to support and incorporate DEI across Island Health.
MJ completed a Bachelor of Health Sciences (BHSc) in Midwifery with Honours at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario. Throughout her education, she completed midwifery training and clinical placements in diverse communities across Ontario, including caring for a large Amish and Mennonite settlement in Southwestern Ontario. These clinical placements allowed MJ to have a deeper understanding of how innovative, accommodating, and flexible healthcare solutions can improve outcomes for marginalized or unique populations.
MJ chose to become a Midwife as she believes strongly in healthcare autonomy and choice. For MJ, midwifery blends the art of relationships and trust building with understanding the nuances of our healthcare system. This allows her to follow people and families through transformative and often complex or impactful times in their lives. This continually challenges her and creates flexibility in how she views patient access to medical care. She often views herself not only as a healthcare provider but as a healthcare navigator, as she believes midwives are well suited to navigate patients through a sometimes overwhelming and complex healthcare system.
MJ has spent the last three years working as the unofficial Gender Inclusion Liaison in Island Health; assisting gender diverse and/or queer folks entering Island Health navigate the system in a way that feels safe for them. She has also held the Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Advisor position for her professional association, the Midwives Association of British Columbia until May 2023. She is the co-founder and member of the Board of Directors of Pacific Perinatal Foundation; a charitable foundation that provides wraparound supportive care for people experiencing perinatal or infant loss, and Full Circle Perinatal Care; a clinical practice providing assessment, point of care ultrasound, management of pregnancy and/or infant loss, and comprehensive supportive follow up for those people experiencing perinatal loss.
She is partnered to an on-call midwife and they are busy parents to four kids between the ages of 20 and 4 years old. They enjoy trying new ice cream shops or eating delicious food (because teenagers are always hungry!), visiting beaches and lakes, and hiking or adventuring outdoors. She enjoys knitting, crafting, biking, cooking, her cats, her kids, and uninterrupted cups of coffee with her partner.
She is a queer-identified, gender non-conforming person of multigenerational Canadian and mixed European descent. MJ’s pronouns are she/her/hers. She is very grateful and privileged to be invited to do this work within Island Health.