Indigenous health care Archives

Mistreated

February 8, 2018

On a brisk spring day in 1965, Annie Michael stepped onto an airplane for the first time.

The 10-year-old had tested positive for tuberculosis, the airborne disease that had ravaged her hometown of Niaqunngut, a remote Baffin Island community southeast of Iqaluit. Her southbound flight was the first leg of a days-long journey to the Queen Mary Hospital for Tuberculous Children in Toronto.

While Michael’s stay at the hospital was meant to cure her potentially deadly condition, the experience left damage of another kind.

How to improve Indigenous health? Address jurisdictional disputes

May 9, 2017

In 2017, there remains a health-care system in Canada excluded from the shelter of the 1984 Canada Health Act. Funded by the First Nations and Inuit Health Branch of Health Canada (FNIHB), Canada’s 14th health-care system operates outside of the legislative framework of the 13 provinces and territories. It operates on First Nation reserves across Canada and in the Inuit communities of northern Quebec and Labrador.

Ample evidence shows that Canadians faced with serious health issues experience considerable challenges navigating their provincial health-care system. For First Nations and Inuit patients, this is compounded by having to continuously cross jurisdictional boundaries to access the care they need – They are faced with additional challenges because federal and provincial authorities often disagree on which system should pay for which services.

Studies have shown that jurisdictional confusion creates barriers to First Nations and Inuit accessing services other Canadians can expect. Despite having been involved in the funding and delivery of health services to First Nations and Inuit since 1945, the federal government has yet to clearly define its obligations to First Nations and Inuit in relation to the provision of health services.