Health Watch - January, 2016

Partnership to help with high cost of food

Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug, Lac Seul First Nation and Creewest GP Inc. (a for-profit corporation owned by First Nations in the northeast) have signed a memorandum of understanding to build a food distribution and logistics centre in Sioux Lookout to better provide food to northern communities.

The plan calls for a new warehouse hangar to be built at the airport in Sioux Lookout, which would include refrigerated storage and act as both the transport hub for shipping food north and the business centre for processing orders and transactions. The initial goal is to reduce the cost of groceries in northern communities by 40 per cent. First Nations would be responsible for procuring the food, while Creewest would handle the logistics of transporting the goods from the proposed warehouse to the communities, said Ron Basaraba, CEO of Creewest.

Funding for the project will come from Creewest’s own capital, as well as a variety of sources, such as the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation, FedNor, and the Nishnawbe Aski Development Fund. Creewest would own 51 per cent of the project and member First Nations would own 49 per cent. It is hoped the project will be operating within a year.

Economic downturn pushes food bank use

Food bank use has increased for the second consecutive year, and continues to hover at record levels, according to a national study released this month by Food Banks Canada. The HungerCount 2015 report shows that 852,137 people – 305,366 of them children – accessed a food bank in March this year. Food bank use is 1.3 per cent higher than in 2014, and 26 per cent higher than in 2008, when the economic downturn started.

This means that 175,000 more people each month are seeking assistance, compared to 2008. The national increase was strongly influenced by Alberta, where food bank use rose by a shocking 23 per cent in the past year. Food bank operators in Alberta, including those on First Nations, say usage has grown even more since the March 2015 calculation.

AIDS/HIV still hold stigma

Organizers for National Aboriginal AIDS Awareness Week say stigma and discrimination still have an impact and were felt at the kick-off event in Calgary on Dec. 1. “The invitation was sent to all of the chiefs … and I think we have two chiefs from throughout the province,” said Ken Clement, CEO for the Canadian Aboriginal AIDS Network. “It’s a commentary that, I think, needs to be said. That’s part of the stigma and discrimination as experienced by our leadership. Stigma and not understanding what HIV is about. (It) is important for us to share with our leadership to be able to change their minds. Our leadership needs to understand that HIV is preventable.” The numbers of HIV-infected Aboriginal people continue to increase. According to Public Health Agency of Canada figures, it is estimated that 9.1 per cent of Aboriginal people were living with HIV/AIDS in Canada in 2014, which represents an increase of 12.1 per cent from the 2011 estimate. Workshops were held throughout the week in Ottawa, Regina, Montreal, Winnipeg and Halifax.

Housing conditions impact Inuit children’s health

A new Statistics Canada report compared the health of 1,233 Inuit children age two to five to physical housing characteristics like overcrowding, a parent’s reported satisfaction with their housing and home ownership, and determined a family’s lower satisfaction rate in living conditions and lack of home ownership are related to poor physical and mental health in the children.

It was the first study of its kind to use a population-based sample of children under six years old to look at various aspects of housing and children’s health outcomes. The report shows more than a third of Inuit children age two to five live in crowded homes and close to 30 per cent live in homes in need of major repair compared to their non-Aboriginal counterparts at less than seven per cent and eight per cent, respectively.

Inuit children whose parents reported lower levels of housing satisfaction had more chronic and respiratory conditions, ear infections, inattention hyperactivity and emotional symptoms. Anna Banerji, director of Global and Indigenous Health at the University of Toronto, says more than housing conditions factor into a child’s health, including poverty and poor nutrition.