Diabetes education is key to battling growing epidemic

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The Aboriginal Diabetes Wellness Program in Edmonton boasts an impressive structure of assistance to people suffering from diabetes.

People coming to the program, located next to the Royal Alexandra Hospital, at 10959-102 St., are assisted by 14 trained staff members who will help them using a mixture of western medicine and traditional healing.

"The big key," said Capital Health Authority Elder in residence and diabetes program facilitator Raven Makkinaw, "is the balance of traditional and western healing - how to work the two side-by-side and get them to work together."

Makkinaw and his wife Rita spearheaded the program. Raven, himself a person with diabetes, has lost part of his leg to the illness.

Neither Rita nor Raven refer to diabetes as a disease, and neither refer to their clients as diabetics. Those names don't belong in our vocabulary, said Rita.

"Never call it a disease, never," said Rita. "It's a condition. As soon as you call it a disease, you are sick and you don't have to be sick with this.

"You don't say that you are a diabetic, either. You are not a diabetic because then you never have closure."

The program takes a person with diabetes in for four days. The program also allows for a support member to live with the person for the duration of the program.

While the program takes up the second floor of the building, the third floor houses the people enrolled in the program.

The program includes instruction on coping with diabetes, Native cultural ways to wellness, blood sugar testing, meal planning, foot care, and medication use. After the four days, the client is hoped to have a more balanced sense of body, mind, heart and spirit. The program also educates the support person about the diabetes.

From there, Rita said, the information will go back to the people's community where it will hopefully educate even more people.

"We are only one little piece of the big picture," she said.

It is hoped that the program's teachings will promote the awareness of diabetes through the clients in their home communities.

The Edmonton program also teaches health care workers about diabetes so they can provide assistance to people in their own communities.

"That way we all work on this together. We are just one part of it," said Rita.

Both Rita and Raven understand that more needs to be done to educate the public about diabetes. Rita said the cases of the condition are rapidly growing.

A recent conference in San Diego reported that cases of diabetes in Manitoba's Native communities could triple within 20 years.

With the increasing emphasis on the condition, there is still relatively little information about how diabetes is formed.

The condition is a life long illness where the body cannot produce insulin or cannot properly use the insulin it does produce. There are some factors which may lead to a greater chance of a person becoming diabetic.

According to the Alberta Foundation for Diabetes Research, diabetes may be hereditary and overweight people are more at risk, as are those over 40 and those with poor dietary habits.

The foundation cites that one in 20 Canadians has diabetes and it is the third leading cause of death in Canadians. The statistics also label diabetes as the leading reason for physician visits, utilization of hospital out patient facilities and hospitalization among Canadians of any age or gender.

The urgency to find answers and educate more people is the driving cause behind the creation of the Aboriginal Diabetes Wellness Program.

Four years ago, Raven started up the Aboriginal Wellness Program at the Royal Alexandra hospital. An advisory board was created from community representatives from north central Alberta. Raven is the chairperson of the board. They decided unanimously to create a program to deal with diabetes - which was then, and continues to be, a leading cause of death and suffering in Aboriginal communities.

Over the last 50 years, diabetes hs spread from a few isolated cases within Native communities to proportions now where some areas have 50 per cent of their population afflicted with the condition.

The diabetes wellness program has never lost sight of the people the condition affects. They offer education and information on the condition itself, but everything is based on the people, she said. The diabetes program was created by the people for the people and continues to be run with that in mind.

"They have total ownership of it, " she said. "Empowerement is the big thing. They have to know that this is all for them."

A person wishing to come to the program should phone (403) 477-4512 or contact their local doctor, health centre or a community health representative.

The program is offered at no cost thanks to a generous donation by NOVA. The building and living accommodations are supplied free of charge by Edmonton's Capital Health Authority.

The Aboriginal Diabetes Wellness Program opened up on Nov. 20, 1996.