✓ Listen to residents.
✓ Lead with integrity.
✓ Use evidence, not assumptions.
✓ Build partnerships.
✓ Deliver practical results for Richmond.
Specialty: Reaching out to invisible populations, identifying hidden systemic barriers,
Hong Yan Melody Pan
Independent for Richmond Council
Biography
submitted by the candidate or their team
Serving Richmond for 26+ years, Registered Nurse and leader Melody Pan believes in service, listening and accountability. She advocates for inclusive communities, emergency preparedness, seniors, people with disabilities, and those too often unheard.
Contributions to Richmond
From 2013 to 2014, Melody has tirelessly engaged with the community to advocate for the preservation of the 5-acre green space at the former Old Steveston Secondary School site in Richmond, recognizing that access to green space is an important social determinant of health. Through community petitions, multiple communications with the MLA, school boards, news media, and the City of Richmond, she worked to raise awareness that losing this valued natural space to development could significantly impact the physical, mental, and social well-being of the surrounding neighborhood. Her advocacy focused on protecting this community asset as a healthy, accessible space for residents and future generations (natural snowbirds) to enjoy. Over the years, she provided multiple free health promotion and emergency preparation sessions to Richmond Hospital Foundation, New Immigrant Settlement Services, and local non-profit organizations.
Melody has extensive lived experience engaging with municipal services as a Richmond resident. Over the years, she has interacted with the City of Richmond on matters including building codes, bylaw services, renovation permit applications, dog licensing, reporting damaged city equipment, library, recreation, community center, senior care, accessibility, and community safety concerns. These experiences have provided her with a practical understanding of how residents access city services and the importance of responsive, accessible, and accountable local government.
MELODY HONG YAN PAN 巖 Contribution to the community
KPU honours Hong Yan Melody Pan with 2025 Alumni Excellence Award | Kwantlen Polytechnic University
Story Details: Melody Pan - Nursing | KPU Alumni
Attended multiple public hearings at the City of Vancouver to provide opinions on Chinatown memorial monument preservation and open letters to the development and planning board. https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/local-news/decision-on-controversial-vancouver-chinatown-condo-project-expected-june-26-beedie-105-keefer-7138314
Professional & Education
Hong Yan (Melody) Pan 巖 began her healthcare career as a pharmacist before immigrating to Canada. After moving to Canada, she became a Registered Nurse, healthcare educator, community advocate, and Doctor of Education student, with more than 26 years of experience serving Richmond, the broader community, and healthcare facilities.
Melody has been a Registered Nurse in British Columbia since 2004 and is also registered as a nurse in the United States since 2008. Her healthcare career has included acute care, critical care ICU, nursing informatics, community health, long-term care, and nursing education, supporting healthcare professionals through education, leadership development, and quality improvement initiatives. Her work focuses on improving patient care, strengthening healthcare systems, and supporting frontline professionals. For more than 13 years, Melody has contributed to critical care databases in local hospitals and across British Columbia, supporting the collection of reliable, high-quality data to better utilize critical care beds and improve the quality of healthcare services.
Melody’s academic journey reflects her commitment to lifelong learning and leadership. She earned her Diploma in Nursing from Douglas College, completed the Diploma to Bachelor of Science in Nursing at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, and obtained a Master of Science in Nursing (Leadership) from Trinity Western University. Melody completed a nursing specialty in Critical Care at KPU/Mt Royal College and Nephrology nursing at BCIT. She is currently pursuing a Doctor of Education (EdD) in Organizational Leadership with a focus on Health Administration, where her research examines the experiences and career advancement barriers of internationally educated nurses in British Columbia.
Melody is an alumna of three post-secondary institutions in Richmond: Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU), Trinity Western University (TWU), and the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT).
Always Ready: Melody believes in prevention, proactive preparedness, and addressing risks before they become crises. Guided by her motto, “Always Ready,” she uses her own time to study community disaster risks, including Richmond’s tsunami risk, drawing on evidence from City of Richmond resources and local university research. She promotes individual and community emergency preparedness and has volunteered through the BC Provincial Health Care Emergency Response Pool. She has also responded to wildfire emergencies, including supporting the relocation of long-term care residents. Her approach is simple: identify risks early, prepare before an emergency happens, and take action proactively to protect people and the community.
Emergency preparedness and COVID-19 Response and Community Health Promotion
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Melody volunteered in multiple capacities supporting local and broader public health response efforts. She contributed her healthcare knowledge and experience from the SARS outbreak 2003, the H1N1 outbreak in 2009, and the Ebola outbreak to initiatives focused on community safety, health education, global health, and pandemic preparedness.
Recognizing the importance of accessible health information during a time of uncertainty, Melody provided multiple free health promotion and education sessions for the Richmond community and senior groups in South Vancouver. These sessions helped residents better understand health protection measures, infection prevention, and strategies to maintain well-being during the pandemic.
Through her involvement in COVID-19 response efforts locally and globally, Melody demonstrated her commitment to public health, community resilience, and ensuring that vulnerable populations have access to reliable health information and support.
Melody’s commitment to Richmond’s emergency preparedness extends beyond responding to crises. She believes communities are stronger when residents are prepared before emergencies happen, and when governments have the resources and people needed to support those who are most vulnerable.
Her efforts include providing free public education on emergency preparedness, including practical guidance on preparing individual grab-and-go bags for vulnerable populations. After the 2021 heat dome, Melody took practical steps to strengthen emergency preparedness at home. Recognizing that prolonged power outages could become life-threatening for people who depend on home ventilation or other electrically powered life-sustaining equipment, she prepared a generator that could potentially provide emergency backup power when needed. For Melody, emergency preparedness means thinking beyond her own household—identifying the needs of vulnerable residents and advocating for communities to have the knowledge, resources, and response capacity needed before a crisis occurs. Melody also volunteered to join her workplace emergency preparedness committee, contributing her healthcare and emergency-response experience to help strengthen preparedness for critical infrastructure and ensure essential services can continue during emergencies.
She advocates for policies that strengthen emergency response capacity, ensuring sufficient personnel and resources to support emergency relief and recovery in Richmond and BC.
This commitment to preparedness is also reflected in her four-year effort to advocate for stronger reservist leave protections. Through multiple emails and recommendations to provincial and federal policymakers, Melody raised concerns about the financial and career consequences reservists face when they take time away from civilian employment to serve their country (please see the image below of her email to the MLA). On September 5, 2026, the BC Government announced changes to reservist leave provisions. Melody welcomes this development as an important step toward recognizing the contributions of reservists and improving support for those who serve.
For Melody, meaningful public service means more than identifying problems. It means listening to lived experiences, advocating for practical policy changes, and continuing the work until those concerns receive meaningful attention.
https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2026LBR0027-001029
Academic Engagement and Knowledge Sharing
Melody is committed to advancing healthcare knowledge through academic engagement, research, and professional collaboration. Her interests extend beyond clinical practice to include healthy aging, sustainable healthcare systems, and global nursing leadership.
She has contributed to discussions on senior care and healthy aging in Canada, including work to improve the quality of life, dignity, and support systems for older adults.
At the International Council of Nurses (ICN) Congress 2019, Melody participated in global nursing dialogue focused on sustainability and environmental responsibility in healthcare, including healthcare waste reduction initiatives. She believes that healthcare systems must balance quality patient care with environmental stewardship to protect the health of future generations.
Through her academic work and professional involvement, Melody continues to promote evidence-informed practice, innovation in healthcare delivery, and solutions that connect community health, sustainability, and social responsibility.
Melody 巖’s professional education has equipped her with strong skills in engaging vulnerable populations to speak up, data collection, data analysis, evidence-based decision-making, and communication with policy-making stakeholders. Through her studies in nursing and healthcare leadership, Melody has developed a deep understanding of how the World Health Organization’s social determinants of health -including housing, transportation, accessibility, the environment, and social inclusion- influence population health and community well-being.
To expand her understanding of municipal issues, Melody received OCP development training as part of nursing professional community health education. She attended Zero Waste conferences while serving on the city environment advisory committee. She attended multiple municipal conferences over the past several years as a BC Nurses’ Union representative. These experiences have strengthened her knowledge of sustainable communities, public policy, and the important role local governments play in creating healthy, resilient, and inclusive communities.
Melody has also participated in multiple local cities' committees and community initiatives focused on environmental sustainability, senior care, emergency preparedness, and cultural inclusion. These experiences have provided her with practical insight into community priorities and strengthened her commitment to bringing evidence-informed leadership, collaboration, and a strong community voice to Richmond City Council.
Leadership: Melody believes leadership is not a position or title. It is a position of service to others before self. Her leadership style is relational, quiet, servant-oriented, and often behind the scenes, with a focus on preserving the dignity of those receiving the service. She believes anyone who sincerely helps others do better, feel better, and become better is demonstrating leadership—the true character of a great leader. True leadership does not always seek recognition, media attention, or public credit; sometimes its greatest impact is quietly strengthening people, organizations, and communities. To her, leadership is measured not by authority or visibility, but by the positive difference one makes in the lives of others and the community.
2017 Professional Opinion Briefing Advancing Inclusion And Quality Of Life For Seniors submission to Ottawa House of Commons of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development And The Status of Persons With Disabilities. https://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/42-1/HUMA/report-8/
HealthPolicyGraduateStudentsTrinityWesternUniversity-e.pdf
HHN0520_Social Inclusion_00085_Deepak.indd
Past Conferences | University of Regina Canadian Doctoral Nursing Student Conference 2025 Jun 17 0320-0340 pm Barriers to Leadership Advancement among Internationally
Reason for running
submitted by the candidate or their team
After 26 years of living, working and serving in Richmond, I’m running to bring a healthcare and evidence-informed perspective to local government, strengthen accountable governance, support vulnerable residents, and help build a safer, inclusive and sustainable Richmond.
melodypan.ca melodypan.ca