Media.Knet.Ca

This particular editorial, as well as the CBC story below, is very timely as we sadly report the untimely and probably preventable deaths of two more friends and residents of Health Canada's "Sioux Lookout Health Zone". Cameron Sainnawap of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug passed away earlier this week. Last night, Julie Kejick of Lac Seul First Nation also passed away. 

Editorial from Canadian Medical Association Journal ...
CMAJ • August 14, 2007; 177 (4). doi:10.1503/cmaj.070950.

Jordan's Principle, governments' paralysis
Noni MacDonald, MD MSc* and Amir Attaran, LLB PhD

Section Editor, Public Health, CMAJ* Canada Research Chair in Law, Population Health and Global Development Policy University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ont. For the Editorial-Writing Team (Paul C. Hébert, Matthew Stanbrook, Barbara Sibbald and Ken Flegel)

Children are vulnerable members of our society. They are voiceless in decision-making, subject to the judgments and actions of others. First Nations people are also vulnerable — victims of ill-will and broken promises and suffering from the worst social, economic and health conditions in Canada.

So imagine the unenviable situation to be a First Nations child, very sick and living on a reserve where there are minimal children's services.

"Jordan" was a child with a rare neuromuscular disorder born in 1999 on the Norway House Cree Nation reserve in northern Manitoba.1 His complex medical needs could not be managed there, so he was referred for treatment to Winnipeg. As his illness progressed, he became wheelchair-bound, ventilator dependent and unable to speak.

By 2001, Jordan's hospital caregivers decided to discharge him to specialized foster home care near to his home reserve. Both his physicians and family agreed that this decision was best for Jordan. Then, the bureaucrats ruined it. The federal and Manitoba governments could not agree on who was financially responsible for Jordan's care. Bickering erupted: over foster care, transportation to clinic — even over tiny items, like a showerhead. For over 2 years, warring bureaucrats left no stone unthrown.

This intergovernmental dispute only stopped when — you guessed it — Jordan died from his underlying disease in a Winnipeg hospital, far from his family and community. No one has been held accountable for blocking Jordan's care closer to home.

Canada is a party to the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, a treaty that states: "In all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration."2

Jordan's interests fell a distant second; intergovernmental squabbling over the duty to pay came first. Canada contravened this treaty.

Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms forbids discrimination. Many of the services Jordan needed would be paid for without question for a white Manitoban, or off-reserve Aboriginal resident. It was Jordan's living on-reserve that caused the bureaucracy to choke. That is discrimination pure and simple.

Canada's constitution recognizes and affirms Aboriginal and treaty rights. The Supreme Court in 1984 declared "the Government has the responsibility to act in a fiduciary capacity with respect to aboriginal peoples," in a relationship that "is trust-like, rather than adversarial." One wonders how this obligation was met by the bureaucrats who allowed Jordan to live and then die in the Winnipeg hospital far from his loved ones, while the adversarial turf war raged.

Other First Nations children with complex medical needs are frequently caught in this bureaucratic nightmare. Last March, the families of 37 profoundly disabled Norway House Cree Nation children were told that funds for further health professional and support services in their community would cease.3 Families wanting health care for their children were forced to send them away — likely forever.

Those who defend the status quo say that Canada's geography makes health care delivery for complex chronic illness difficult and costly. The same critics usually omit to mention that Canada's geography — its petroleum, timber, minerals and waterways, much of it within First Nations' traditional territory — also makes it wealthy. Geography is no excuse for the pusillanimous, inequitable distribution of wealth, such that advanced care exists only in the south and First Nations children, parents and communities endure psychological and cultural stress to access it. The point isn't what portion of the cost the federal, territorial and provincial governments each pay but, rather, that the wrangling stop so that the right care, at the right place, at the right times can be provided for people on First Nations' reserves.

Today the CMAJ endorses what is called "Jordan's Principle" (www.fncfcs.com/more/jordansPrinciple.php). Consistent with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, we endorse putting the medical needs of First Nations' children first. We also make this recommendation: that if the provincial, territorial and federal governments ignore Jordan's Principle and entangle themselves in financial or jurisdictional battles first, then governments deserve to be sued, in the most winnable test case that First Nations' advocates can manage. Let the courts decide, if the bureaucrats and politicians continue to refuse to find a timely resolution.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements: We acknowledge the contributions to this editorial of Cindy Blackstock MM, Executive Director, First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada, Ottawa; Bradford W. Morse LLM, Professor of Law, University of Ottawa; and Jeff Reading PhD PHS, Scientific Director, CIHR Institute for Aboriginal Peoples' Health, University of Victoria, Victoria.

REFERENCES

• Lavallee TL. Honouring Jordan: Putting First Nations children first and funding fights second. J Paediatr Child Health 2005;10:527-9.
• United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Available: www.ohchr.org/english/law/pdf/crc.pdf (accessed 2007 Jul 9).
• Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs. Disabled children lose services because governments won't pay. Available: www.manitobachiefs.com/press/norway-house.pdf (accessed 2007 June 18).

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From CBC News online ...

Sue for fair medical treatment, CMA editorial tells First Nations
August 16, 2007

First Nation governments should sue to receive fair medical treatment, said an editorial published Tuesday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

"The bleeding sore on Canada and its human rights record is how very little consideration First Nations get for basic needs," said editorial co-author and University of Ottawa law professor Amir Attaran.

In the editorial titled "Jordon's Principle, governments' paralysis," Attan and co-writer Dr. Noni MacDonald urged the federal, provincial and territorial governments to pay medical treatment bills for First Nations children, then argue over who foots the tab once treatment is given.

This concept is called "Jordan's Principle" after a Manitoba child who had a rare neuromuscular disorder and died in a Winnipeg hospital at the age of four while the federal and Manitoban governments argued over who would pay his medical bills.

Attaran said it's a shame that governments argue over who should pay for complex medical expenses while aboriginal children die and their families suffer.

He cited the case of McKenzie Olsen, a 12-year-old boy from the Nacho Nyak Dun First Nation in Mayo, Yukon.

Olsen has Hurler-Scheie Syndrome, a disease causing toxins to build up in cells, leading to progressive damage to bones, joints, the heart and respiratory and central nervous systems. His treatments cost up to $17,000 a week, and the province of Alberta, where Olsen now lives, will only pay 40 per cent of the costs, claiming that his medical bills are a federal responsibility.

Attaran said that First Nation families like the Olsens need to take the issue to court in order to prevent the deaths of aboriginal children from a lack of medical treatment while governments squabble over the bills. 

"[MacKenzie] and his family are hostages to the indifference and inefficiencies of bureaucratic processes, and I expect they're only going to get a final decision on McKenzie's treatment if they go all the way to a trial and judgment," he said.

If the governments are unsure of their responsibility, Attaran said, they merely need to look at the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees equal treatment for all Canadians, and let common sense prevail.

In an interview with CBC Radio he issued a warning to government officials about treating First Nation children differently.

Attaran said, "Anyone listening to the broadcast who works for the territorial government, the provincial one, the federal one, mark these words well, it's the advice of the leading medical journal in Canada that you'll be sued if you do not provide the treatment that First Nation children require."

From Thunder Bay Chroncile Journal ...

Aboriginal physician travels world to study shamans, healers for new TV series
By LISA ARROWSMITH - August 14, 2007

EDMONTON (CP) - Sick with the flu, Dr. Daniele Behn Smith felt a ripple of fear as she stood on the outskirts of a tribal trance dance in Namibia and waited for a whirling, zombie-like medicine man to touch her chest.

The aboriginal doctor, 27 years old when she joined the healing ceremony of the African San people in September 2006, was a long way from the northeastern British Columbia community of Fort Nelson where she was born.

That’s where she’d started her eight-month journey to document the world’s indigenous healers, shamans and medicine people. The project explored how their knowledge could relate to modern medicine for a new television series called Medicine Woman, to be broadcast this fall in Canada on Vision TV.

The previous day, Behn Smith had attended a ceremony where the medicine man had tried to heal a sick baby. He went into what she thought was a frightening trance as members of the tiny community clapped and chanted to help him commune with the spirit world.

Battling stomach cramps and diarrhea, Behn Smith had been ducking out every few minutes to relieve herself as the camera crew filmed the latest ceremony. Now the healer was going around the circle, from person to person, and Behn Smith grew afraid as her turn approached.

"He came up to me and did his singing and dancing around me and put his hand on my chest," she said in an interview from her home in Dawson City, Yukon, where she now has a family practice.

"From that moment forward, my stomach was fine. Everything was fine. My body was completely healed."

It was just one of several life-changing experiences for Behn Smith, a member of the Eh-Cho Dene, as she travelled to 10 countries and several continents - from the fringe of the Arctic Circle to the jungles of Asia and the grasslands of Africa - to learn about traditional healing.

Filming began last August in Behn Smith’s hometown of Fort Nelson, B.C., and wrapped up in February in Saskatchewan.

The doctor, who grew up in Winnipeg, saw many things. The power of herbs from Celtic herbalist and Druid arch-priestess Gina McGarry in Ireland. The healing energy of Ruben Orellana Neira, a Peruvian archeologist, who discovered new digs at Machu Picchu, and established the Kamaquen Healing Center in Peru’s Urubamba Valley.

But the same thread ran through every mystical or healing experience.

"I knew that there was this fundamental connection and understanding among indigenous people about what true health is, and that there is this connection with an energy greater than ourselves that needs to be acknowledged," Behn Smith said.

There were also the not-so-mystical experiences such as going head-to-head with a five-centimetre-long cockroach that invaded her hotel bathroom in Sri Lanka.

She didn’t feel very spiritual as she tried to batter the giant bug with a pink slipper, finally summoning the courage to crunch it with a heavy hiking boot.

"I had to summon all of my strength to go back in and hit this cockroach over the head, which I did, and killed it. That took all my energy so I couldn’t even bring myself to scoop it up."

She didn’t shower for five days, fearing retribution by giant members of the bug’s cockroach clan.

"They fly!" she exclaimed. "If I’d known that, I would have slept in our van."

Her healing experiences have changed her in subtle ways that her patients in Dawson City may not detect, Behn Smith said.

"I don’t go in trying to heal people or affect change. I go in praying to the Creator that the Creator will use me that day to try and honour someone else’s experience."

But filming the series has also forced her to take a more holistic approach. She now says she recognizes that some health problems - and the state of the planet - may be related to a lack of spiritual and social well-being or a failure to recognize that all living things are connected.

Shirley Cheechoo, an award-winning Ontario-based Cree director, actor and playwright, was recruited to direct the series at a pitch session in Cannes a couple of years ago. Australian co-producer Norm Wilkinson of Visionquest Entertainment had been kicking around the idea for a few years and approached her.

Cheechoo well remembers meeting the Peruvian healer.

"He came up to me and said, ’You better go home and take care of your liver.’ I came home ... and discovered that I had problems with my liver," said Cheechoo in an interview from Manitoulin Island, Ont.

"It struck me, how did he know that just by looking at me?"

Gerry Sperling, executive producer for Regina-based 4 Square Productions, raised the $1.5-million cost of the Australian co-production and set off on a quest to narrow the field of 20 potential aboriginal show hosts.

"They had to be female, beautiful, young and they had to be an M.D.," Sperling said. "I think the aboriginal community should be proud that they had so many aboriginal female doctors out there."

With U.S. and international distribution deals either inked or in the works, Sperling said the show should have universal appeal. "People are looking for alternative ways to treat themselves, and ancient ways to treat themselves, and this is what happens in the series."

The series will also be broadcast on APTN and SCN in Canada.

From the Regina Leader Post ...

School aftermath spans generations
Michelle Hugli - August 15, 2007

The deadline for the residential school settlement is only days away, but we're just getting started on realizing the full impact these schools have had on several generations of First Nations people.

To even start the process of moving forward took years of legal work. It took a painful process of reopening old and unhealed wounds by former students. It will cost billions of dollars in legal fees and settlement costs. And now, finally, we just might be starting the long journey of putting the past behind us. But it's going to take a lot more than just agreeing to the settlement to start moving on. It doesn't end here. This is just the first step.

You don't take two generations of children and strip them of their culture, language and dignity and fix it with a big fat cheque. It's going to take years of counseling, sharing experiences and attempting to reclaim languages and culture and integrating them into our lives. Money being put into healing programs and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission should help get that process started. But again, it is just a beginning.

So far, this entire process has only addressed the experiences of former students. Very little has been said about the impact the residential schools have had on the children of former students. As children of former students, we escaped the horror of attending these schools -- but we did not escape the intended consequences.

The purpose of the residential schools was to prevent my generation from learning our languages and culture, so that we could be successfully assimilated into Canadian society. It was definitely a long-term plan. The Canadian government did not want the languages and cultures passed on to future generations.

It was the most aggressive assimilation campaign Canada has ever administered. And it was so close to being a success that it will take at least another generation or two to recover. The children of former students have had to live with the impacts of our parents' and grandparents' experiences at those schools. Reclaiming our stolen languages and cultures and rebuilding our communities will take time and dedication -- and will require support and resources.

I've gone to the residential school settlement Web site. I saw the word "inter-generational" once. I called the information line to find out how this settlement may affect the children of former students in the future. I was told: "This has absolutely nothing to do with you."

But these schools have everything do with the First Nations people of my generation. We were clear targets of the assimilation policies Canada had in place when they sent our parents and grandparents to these schools.

Many of the problems facing our aboriginal youth today can be attributed to the broken cultural values in our communities. We all see and experience the impacts of these schools every day.

As the child of a former student, I'm not interested in money. No amount of money could ever replace the years I grew up yearning to understand my culture, my language, my connection to my past, my connection to my family and my place in our society.

The settlement money can help former students because it allows for easier access to healing programs and other ways to try to reclaim what's been stolen, but it can never replace the years spent growing up without my language and culture and in a home where the pain and shame inflicted within the residential schools trickled down into our everyday lives.

By only acknowledging how the schools affected former students, we deny the true purpose of the schools and the impacts we are still experiencing today. I just want people to realize that these schools have had far-reaching and devastating impacts that go far beyond what happened within the walls of the actual schools.

First Nations people have until Aug. 20 to make a decision about the residential school settlement.

Former students have three options. They can accept the settlement and request a claim form. The common-experience payment provides $10,000 for the first year of school and $3,000 for each additional year. Former students can claim more if they suffered additional sexual or psychological abuses.

Former students can also choose to opt out of the settlement, which means they will not get a payment, but can sue on their own if they choose to do so. Fewer than 5,000 former students need to opt out for the settlement to go forward.

Or, former students can do nothing and not receive a settlement payment AND lose their right to sue in the future.

While our parents and grandparents decide whether to accept the settlement or opt out, my generation is struggling to pick up the pieces. My generation is trying to find a way to reclaim our culture and values and work them into our lives and be successful in the society we live in today.

As this process continues to move forward, Canada will need to hear from my generation as well. Otherwise we'll never truly understand the devastation brought on by these schools.

- Hugli can be heard on News Talk 980 from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.

FIRST NATIONS HOCKEY TOURNAMENT

SIOUX LOOKOUT,ONTARIO

OCTOBER 5,6,7th, 2007

12 mens hockey teams

entry fee $1,250.00

First Prize - $5,000.00 ( est. )

To register: Deposit of $500.00 required to be on tournament schedule.

First 12 Teams paid accepted

To register: Please mail entry fee to:

First Solutions,
c/o Eno C. Anderson,
P.O. Box 414,
Sioux Lookout, ON
P8T 1A5

...for any questions...phone 1 807 738 0314...Thank you...

Visit http://districthockey.myknet.org/ for other hockey tournament updates!

Thank you.