Promoting health awareness

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Health workers from Aboriginal communities across Canada gathered for a health conference hosted by the Calgary Region 4 Aboriginal Health Council held Oct. 19 to 21.

Inuit from the eastern Arctic, Micmacs from the Maritimes, southern Tutchone from the Yukon and other representatives mixed with local First Nation and Metis participants to share ideas and discuss ways to improve the delivery of health services to Aboriginal people.

"It was supposed to be more of a local thing but we ended up having a national audience," said Toni Tallman, Region 4 Health Council vice chair and conference organizer. The three-day conference was divided into workshops with topics ranging from gambling to diabetes.

Tallman said the conference focused on ways to implement health care recommendations made by the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. In its final report published in 1996, the commission made hundreds of recommendations for improving the living conditions in Aboriginal communities.

"One of the things that really came into focus was the whole issue of having an Aboriginal health council in an urban setting," Tallman said. Aboriginal health councils would ensure that the health care system understands and respects Aboriginal cultures.

Dennis Peter, hospital liaison worker for the Whitehorse General Hospital in the Yukon, said he came down to Calgary to learn new methods to improve health services in his community and to share ideas and knowledge. Peter is part of the hospital's successful 10-year-old liaison program that employs 11 workers.

"We try to cover all the bases that we can for patients in the hospital, for their families so that patients understand what their treatment is about," Peter said. This program is particularly important for Elders who sometimes agree to treatments without understanding them.

"We go in to explain to them thoroughly what their treatment process is going to be," Peter said. In addition to explaining treatments, the liaison program also offers traditional food like moose and caribou, translation services and a new traditional medicine program.

The hospital understands the extended family aspect of Aboriginal communities and caters to it by making rooms and a suite available so patients can have their families close by. The liaison workers keep in touch with patients transferred to southern hospitals and assist family members in visiting them.

Richard Folster is the Calgary Regional Health Authority's Aboriginal health council chair. He said the authority also realized the necessity of understanding Aboriginal culture in meeting Native health concerns when it created the council in 1996.

"The health needs are different because of the holistic traditional way of Aboriginal people," Folster said. He said meeting the needs of one Aboriginal person eventually leads to meeting the needs of the entire Aboriginal community.

"What is also different is the Aboriginal values and traditions that come into play," Folster said. Those values and traditions include the importance of protocol, understanding the concepts of sacredness and knowledge of traditional medicines.

The authority implemented an Aboriginal Health representative program, similar to the one in the Yukon, as one way of creating understanding and awareness, but Folster said understanding and awareness has to be a two-way street. He said the representatives must also educate Aboriginal people about hospital procedures.

Folster said another difficulty facing health workers is not only understanding the differences between non-Aboriginal people and Aboriginal people, but also understanding that there are different Aboriginal cultures.

In addition to the workshops, keynote speakers were featured, with Tina Fox from the Stoney Nation speaking on the last day of the conference. She shared the story of her struggle to overcome alcoholism and the psychological and emotional scars inflicted by sexual abuse. She said Aboriginal people must take reponsibility for their own healing.

"White people can't heal us," Fox said. "We have to do it with our own customs and traditions."

The goal of the conference was to promote understanding and awareness, to share ideas and information, to bring Aboriginal people together in a spirit of healing, and from the feedback and comments he received, Folster said the goal was accomplished.