Dr. Bill Nelems

Dr. Bill Nelems

Founding Board Member & First Vice President, Mamas for Mamas

1939–2017

Dr. Bill Nelems was one of the founding board members of Mamas for Mamas and served as the organization’s first Vice President.

When Mamas for Mamas was still an idea becoming an organization, Bill believed in what we were trying to build. He lent his experience, credibility and leadership to a young charity founded on a very simple idea: that no mama or child should have to face poverty, crisis or isolation alone.

His willingness to stand beside us at the very beginning is an important part of the history of Mamas for Mamas.

Bill had already spent a lifetime caring for people.

A physician, thoracic surgeon, educator, author and philanthropist, he was an important figure in Canadian medicine. He helped advance thoracic surgery in British Columbia, was involved with the Toronto team that performed Canada’s first lung transplant, and later became the original medical administrative director of the BC Cancer Centre for the Southern Interior in Kelowna. He was also an early champion of telemedicine, helping expand access to specialized care for patients living throughout rural and remote British Columbia.

But his commitment to people extended far beyond medicine.

Bill helped establish OkaZHI, a partnership between health-care professionals in the Okanagan and Zambia focused on collaborative medical education and improving health care in rural communities. Even after retiring from surgery, he continued caring for patients experiencing chronic pain and continued learning, teaching and looking for ways to make people’s lives better.

That was Bill.

He understood that health does not exist separately from community, dignity, connection and the circumstances in which people live.

It was therefore deeply meaningful that, when Mamas for Mamas was becoming a registered Canadian charity, Bill agreed to become one of our founding directors and our first Vice President.

Mamas for Mamas officially received charitable registration on January 27, 2017.

Just over two months later, on March 31, 2017, Bill died suddenly.

He never got to see what the little organization he helped establish would become.

He never saw the thousands of families who would eventually walk through our doors. He never saw the communities that would grow around this work, the programs that would be built, or how far the belief that neighbours should take care of neighbours would travel.

But his fingerprints are there.

Before there were hubs and programs and teams, there were people willing to say, “Yes. This matters. Let’s build it.”

Bill was one of those people.

There is a word that appeared prominently in the tribute written about Bill after his death: Ubuntu.

It describes the idea that our humanity is bound together, that who we are exists in relationship with one another.

In many ways, that same philosophy became part of the foundation of Mamas for Mamas.

We belong to one another.

We are responsible for one another.

And when someone in our community is struggling, we do what we can to help carry them.

Dr. Bill Nelems helped us put that belief into action at the very beginning.

We remain profoundly grateful that he chose to be part of our story.

His time on our board was far too short.

His place in the history of Mamas for Mamas is permanent.