Health committee concerned over priorities

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Just recently the Alberta Indian Health Care Commission (AIHCC) moved from its old site on the boardwalk in Edmonton to its new location at 1390 First Edmonton Place, at 10665 and Jasper Avenue.

It is the desire of the AIHCC to let people know of its new location because of the many still visiting the old site.

The AIHCC is a regular board of health that deals with Treaty Indian people's issues in the province of Alberta and in regard to health and its regulations.

Funded by the federal government and incorporated both federally and provincially, the AIHCC is mandated by the chiefs of the province since 1980, to operate as a regular board of health.

The Board of Health for the AIHCC consists of 10 people, three from each of the Treaty areas and one representative from the Indian Association of Alberta.

According to the chairman and acting executive director for the AIHCC, Greg Smith, one of their main concerns at the moment is for people to become more responsible for their own health in the community.

"The communities must start looking at the needs and problems within their community. I think those are major obstacles that must be dealt with.

"That has been our main thrust over the last few years and, hopefully - and if we can get more people involved from our level in terms of more field workers that can work with Bands all the time - then I think our goals will start filtering through," commented Smith, while referring to an understanding problem.

Smith said that health committees or health boards at the reserve level always tend to put aside local leadership in regards to health being an important part of the community.

"That is not to say that they don't care. It is just a fact that health is not a priority in terms of local leadership, but in essence, it is the basis of all the communities' good health."

Although there is a lack of health concerns being addressed, Smith commented

that the situation is getting better as now they basically operate on straight requests from the Bands.

"We base a lot of our work on requests that come from the reserves and then it

is just a matter of scheduling around events that take place at various reserves at various times. I must add that people are becoming more involved in health issues at the reserve level."

The AIHCC run specific training programs for people wanting to become involved in the field of specialized training such as wholistic health.

"We have a health board leadership training program aimed at the local level and do a lot of community development type of workshops with the communities, dealing with health issues. Basically that is what we do," said Smith.

The AIHCC has two urban health offices, one in Edmonton and the other located in Calgary, with two urban health workers employed with the organization.

"We have a very small staff here (five) and one reason is because our core budget is always maintained at a constant level."

Smith views this as a setback.

"We have had no increase to deal with the real staffing needs that we face, in order to do more community work," said Smith, while commenting they do receive seconded staff from the Medical Services Branch.

It is the urban health worker employed at the AIHCC who is most responsible for Treaty Indian people receiving adequate health care services in the community.

Some of the urban health worker's mandates are to make sure that out of own patients are provided with adequate accommodation, meals and have access to an interpreter when required; to make referrals to appropriate medical and health agencies, and to provide information to the client and doctor regarding the medical benefits for Treaty status Indians.

Smith feels there is still much to be done, but that they are fulfilling an important service to the Native community.

"We had an executive director who left us last December to go into private consulting, so I am sort of taking over for the fiscal year. However, we probablywill

not be hiring for this position and instead will look at field staff. We definitely need field personnel who can work with Bands at a community level all the time," concluded Smith.