IH praised for Indigenous sensitivity
Health-care workers have reacted with compassion and sensitivity when treating Indigenous people with COVID19 and drug overdoses, a Westbank First Nation councillor says.
“I want to give some recognition to Interior Health for establishing a better communication line and relationship with WFN,” Jordan Coble said at a meeting last week of the Central Okanagan Regional Hospital board.
“The collaboration in respond- ing to COVID is an opportunity to build on this relationship,” he said.
Coble is a non-voting member of the hospital board, which is made up of politicians from Central Okanagan municipalities.
During his remarks to IH representatives who were outlining capital spending plans for the coming year, Coble mentioned the impact on Indigenous communities of the two ongoing provincial states of emergency — the ongoing pandemic and the years-long drug overdose crisis.
“What’s impacting our community even more than COVID is the opioid drug overdose crisis,” he said.
“We’ve lost more people to that than COVID. It happens more often than we’d like to acknowledge.”
“When there is a crisis in our community, I’m often involved hands-on, I’m at the hospital with these folks,” Coble said. “I want to give credit to the hospital staff for allowing us to do what we need to do in a way that is meaningful to our people and in accordance with our culture.
“There is so much more sensitivity than I expected at the hospital,” he said. “It’s been tremendous. It really means a lot to us.”
“I really wanted to mention this because there has been a lot of negative media in regards to racism in the health-care system. And it does exist, don’t get me wrong, but I have to give credit where credit is due.”