First Nations call for better health care

Northern First Nations chiefs are anxiously awaiting the auditor general’s report on access to health care in their remote communities.

Nishnawbe Aski Nation Deputy Grand Chief Alfred Fiddler says the report, to be tabled Tuesday, will highlight what his people have been saying for years.

“Health Canada has been making it more and more difficult for our communities to access even things that a lot of Canadians take for granted, things like physiotherapy, treatment and rehab, even speech therapy for children,” Fiddler said.

“There needs to be meaningful action taken on the part of the federal government to improve the situation,” he said.

According to Health Canada reports, aboriginal Canadians suffer twice as many strokes as nonaboriginal Canadians and have heart attacks nearly 20 per cent more often. The infant mortality rate on reserves is nearly double the Canadian average.

Aboriginal youth are 11 times more likely to kill themselves than non-aboriginal youth.

And much of that is worse in remote communities, Fiddler said. The biggest challenges are wait times and getting approvals for medical travel, he said.

“Things like medical escorts, which a lot of these people would require, there are a lot of barriers that they have to overcome,” he said.

An inquest is underway this week in Manitoba into the 2011 death of two-month-old Drianna Ross. She died of septic shock at Thompson General Hospital three days after her parents brought her to the nursing station in the remote First Nations community of Gods Lake Narrows. Her parents brought her in because she had a fever. Staff at the nursing station originally told her parents to give her Tylenol and sent her home. Three days later, her parents returned to the nursing station three times, asking for help. That fever turned out to be a virulent bacterial infection. By the time she was flown to the hospital, it was too late to save her.

The auditor general’s spring report examined whether Health Canada provides reasonable assurances that First Nations people in remote Manitoba and Ontario communities have access to medical transport and clinic services in their communities.

Fiddler said while the situation is dire in many northern communities, he’s hopeful that Tuesday’s report will include recommendations that the government takes seriously. Specifically, he wants to see a promise that the federal government will implement legislation to expand Jordan’s Principal across the country.

Jordan’s Principal refers to a unanimously supported 2007 motion put forward by Prime Minister Stephen Harper that guarantees First Nations children have access to timely medical care regardless of political jurisdictional disputes.

It’s named for Jordan River Anderson, a First Nations child who died after spending two years in hospital because government officials could not decide who should pay for his at-home care.

But Fiddler says in the eight years since the motion was passed, there has been virtually no effort made by the government to implement much-needed changes.