Poplar Hill hosts meeting with Health Canada Officials
On Tuesday, November 19, four Health Canada officials (Roy Hart, Regional Director for IT, Lynn Baxter, Program Manager, Alvin Crane and Rick Frie, Sioux Lookout Zone IT Technicians) chartered a flight to Poplar Hill First Nation to learn first hand about the KO Telehealth Initiative and about the Kuh-ke-nah Broadband Network. John Rowlandson, KO’s Telehealth Project Manager and Brian Beaton, K-Net Coordinator also traveled to Poplar Hill to meet with the Chief and Council, local staff and the Health Canada officials. Check out the pictures from the meeting at the Poplar Hill e-Centre.
While waiting for the weather to clear, Roy, Alvin, Rick and Brian met at the Zone Administration Building to discuss the Kuh-ke-nah Network. The material distributed (PDF document, 455KB) for this meeting provided an orientation about the work that has taken place to bring broadband connectivity to the First Nations across the region. Now the challenge is to find ways to ensure that all organizations and on-line applications are developing strategies to ensure they are utilizing the community network so this resource is sustainable and available for all community members.
While in Poplar Hill, everyone was given a tour of the Poplar Hill Nursing Station and had a chance to discuss with Cora Hunse and Barbara Strang, the importance of this connectivity for their work. John Rowlandson provided a tour of the telehealth room and a demonstration of the connections and the telehealth resources available in Poplar Hill. Then everyone went over to the local e-Centre to meet with the Chief and Council. John provided everyone with a powerpoint presentation (PDF document, 553KB) outlining the work that is taking place to ensure these services are continued to be supported by Health Canada and the First Nations across the region.