AFN Grand Chief & Minister of Health differ on status of health in First Nations
From PHIL FONTAINE - Oct. 13, 2006
Native people wait for promise of better health
The federal Conservative government has clearly indicated that it has little understanding of how to optimize the investments of Canadian taxpayers in the health and social safety net.
Funding cutbacks to health and social programming aimed at the most vulnerable populations in Canada - particularly First Nations - will result in a greater burden to the system, and greater disparities among the health of Canada's richest and poorest populations.
Instead of producing savings to taxpayers, this is going to cost all of us in the short and long term.
Last week, Health Minister Tony Clement gave an address to the Empire Club in Toronto called The Need for Patient Wait Time Guarantees in Canada.
At the same time, the minister is defending the elimination of the First Nations and Inuit Tobacco Control Program even though the smoking rate among First Nations is almost triple the Canadian rate.
Clement has not explained how the patient wait times guarantee will benefit First Nations peoples, who have been excluded from any input into developing a new approach.
Let us remember that Clement is directly responsible for providing health services to First Nations, and there is a well-documented and shameful gap in the health status of First Nations and other Canadians.
Without taking a broader primary care and public health approach to the wait times guarantee, and without ensuring that federal, provincial and territorial governments become more accountable for how they are providing services to First Nations, this new strategy of the minority government will fail in its primary objective: ensuring that all Canadians have the same access to the same standard of care.
Any health professional will agree that access alone does not mean better health status. One must account for quality of service as well as meeting basic needs, like housing and water.
Many First Nations communities are in crisis. One in four First Nations children live in poverty. Overcrowding is double the Canadian average. Mould contaminates half of all First Nations homes.
As of Sept. 8, there are 89 First Nations communities - including 34 in Ontario alone - that have to boil their drinking water. This is why we see Third World diseases like tuberculosis and shigellosis in First Nations communities.
The situation calls for urgent reform of the system and strategic thinking, not simple tinkering with improved measurements of access to hip replacement surgeries.
Next month will mark the 10th anniversary of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples' final report and the one-year anniversary of the First Ministers Accord on Aboriginal Issues.
The Conservative government committed in its election platform to "accept the targets agreed upon at the recent Meeting of First Ministers and National Aboriginal Leaders, and work with first ministers and national aboriginal leaders on achieving these targets."
No such discussion has taken place.
As a result, the annual cost to Canadians of the government's failure to act will reach $11 billion in 2016.
What is truly unfortunate is the cost of addressing these issues is less than the future cost of being satisfied with doing nothing now. What is impossible to measure is the misery and maladies this do-nothing approach costs.
One of the targets achieved at the first ministers meeting was a comprehensive First Nations health plan.
It included recommendations to ensure that the root causes of poverty and disease were addressed in partnership between federal, provincial, territorial and First Nations governments.
The plan was endorsed by all jurisdictions and investments secured to ensure its implementation and success over the next 10 years.
Instead of proposing a "new approach" that will do nothing to make significant progress in closing the gap between First Nations and Canadians, Clement should look to the First Nations Plan. It is actionable and it has the support of all governments.
Lives are in the balance. Time and money should not be wasted trying to repackage innovative approaches for the sake of political gain.
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Phil Fontaine is National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations
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Staff working with First Nations
Oct. 16, 2006. 01:00 AM
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Native people wait for promise of better health - Opinion, Oct. 13.
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I wish to clarify the misleading statements contained in the op ed by Assembly of First Nations' Chief Phil Fontaine.
I met with Fontaine on Sept. 21 specifically to address the problems he cites.
We had a positive and productive discussion about how to improve working relationships and I invited the chief to work directly with me and Health Canada to help solve the native health-care problems that have resulted from 12 years of Liberal mismanagement.
In fact, just last week on Oct. 12, my officials met members of the Assembly of First Nations for further discussions about priority areas on which Fontaine and I will work together.
It appears that Fontaine was drafting his op ed saying the First Nations "have been excluded from any input into developing a new approach" at precisely the same time his staff were meeting with mine to develop the new approach.
I trust that the coincidence of Fontaine's confusing comments and the meeting of our staff was an unfortunate misunderstanding and not an indication that he no longer wishes to work co-operatively with Canada's new government to get things done for the families he represents and who trust him to act in good faith to deliver improved services for them.
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Tony Clement,
Minister of Health,
Ottawa