Media.Knet.Ca

A web site is available for Ontario citizens to add their voice about the type of health system and services they want to see supported across the province. Visit www.ourplanforhealth.ca to share your thoughts on this important matter.

Ontario government press release ...

McGuinty Government Launches Public Engagement On Health Care - Government Wants To Hear From Ontarians On 10-Year Health Plan

TORONTO, Dec. 20 - The McGuinty government is reaching out to Ontarians to get their input in developing a 10-year strategic plan for the province's health care system, Health and Long-Term Care Minister George Smitherman announced today.

"We need to hear from as many Ontarians as possible to help the government form strategies to meet their health needs in the future," Smitherman said. "Our health care system serves all of us - we're in it together. So we want people have a say about how the system should be shaped over the coming decade, and ensure that Ontarians have a long-term strategic plan for health care reflecting their values, priorities and concerns."

During this public engagement with Ontarians, the government will:

- Engage a broad range of Ontarians - including the public and health care organizations - through focus groups, one-day sessions, telephone surveys and feedback from their local MPPs to discuss health care priorities and concerns.
- Get feedback from the public through a website (www.ourplanforhealth.ca) or phone (1-866-532-3161) where they can also get information on other ways to get involved and receive information materials.

The consultations will be part of the development of a strategic plan, which is a commitment legislated under the Local Health System Integration Act. These provincial consultations build on the advice received by the 14 Local Health Integration Networks during earlier discussions with providers and citizens.

The plan, which will be released in the spring of 2007, will set priorities and targets for improvements to be made in the health care system over the next 10 years. The targets will allow the public to track the progress achieved.

"It's about time that more Ontarians are provided a chance to directly influence the way health care is delivered over the next decade," said Smitherman.

The launch of the public engagement is just the latest example of the McGuinty government's commitment to developing an improved health care system. Other initiatives include:

- Passing of the Local Health System Integration Act, 2006, creating 14 Local Health Integration Networks to oversee the delivery of stronger, locally-planned health care
- Investing more than $611 million in our Wait Times Strategy that has provided Ontarians with an additional 738,000 procedures - including MRI and CT scans; cancer, cardiac and cataract surgeries; and hip and knee replacements
- Creating 150 Family Health Teams, which will improve access to primary care for more than 2.5 million Ontarians
- Launching the HealthForceOntario strategy, including the creation of a marketing and recruitment centre to attract health care providers to Ontario
- Ensuring children are now benefiting from three new vaccines free of charge - with more than 1.2 million vaccinations already protecting children from chicken pox, meningococcal meningitis and pneumococcal disease
- Introducing the Health System Improvements Bill that includes proposed legislation to implement Operation Health Protection by establishing a new Ontario Health Protection and Promotion Agency.

Today's initiative is part of the McGuinty government's plan for innovation in public health care, building a system that delivers on three priorities - keeping Ontarians healthy, reducing wait times and providing better access to doctors and nurses.

This news release, along with other media materials, such as matte stories and audio clips, on other subjects, are available on our website at: http://www.health.gov.on.ca under the News Media section.

For more information on achievements in health care, visit: www.resultsontario.gov.on.ca.

Backgrounder
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ONTARIO'S PLAN FOR HEALTH CARE
>>
The Ontario legislature passed the Local Health System Integration Act in March, 2006. The Act requires the government to develop a health care plan that includes a vision, priorities and strategic directions for the health system and make it available to the public. Developing this plan is an opportunity for the public to become involved and help determine how the system can meet their needs over the next 10 years.

The McGuinty government will be engaging the public, front-line providers, local health care officials, and other stakeholders in a transparent planning process that will ensure Ontarians have a long-term plan for health care that reflects their values, priorities and concerns.

The goal is to develop a long-term plan for continuing to build a stronger health care system, which will identify the changes and work toward the solutions so that our health care system is able to improve the overall health and future prosperity of all Ontarians.

Building on Progress

Over the past three years, the government has made a number of innovative changes in key priority areas to address urgent problems within the system. Thanks to the creation of 14 Local Health Integration Networks, the government has taken major steps forward on improving access to health care and reducing wait times for key health services.

Now, the government wants to work together with the people of this province to identify the changes that are needed to re-build the system so it meets the long-term needs and expectations of the public, and improve the health and quality of life of Ontarians.

Process for the 10 Year Strategic Plan

The plan will provide clear direction by setting out a vision, priorities, and strategic directions for the health care system. It will set out three, five and 10-year goals for improving the health of Ontarians, access to necessary services, and sustaining the publicly funded health care system.

The plan will provide direction to the health care system to meet challenges and realize opportunities in the future. It will also set out to measure performance expectations, which will be used to ensure progress is being made according to the 10-year plan.

This strategic approach will help move Ontario's health care system toward long-term goals that improve health outcomes and keep the publicly funded system on a sustainable path for current and future generations.

The plan, which will be released in the spring of 2007, will provide direction into future health system policy, planning, investment, and the operation of government and government agencies.

Public Engagement

The provincial public engagement will play a key role in the development of the 10-year plan. It will build on the advice received by the 14 Local Health Integration Networks during their own community engagement exercises over the past several months, as they have developed three year plans for the local delivery of health care services.

The government's strategic planning process will involve a broader and longer-term (10 year) perspective, encompassing province wide services that are outside of LHIN responsibility, as well as looking at how to improve the overall health of Ontarians. LHINs will be consulted, engaged and involved to the extent they determine, throughout both the Plan development and Public Engagement activities.

The public engagement with Ontarians includes the following elements:

- A website (www.ourplanforhealth.ca) telephone number (1-866-532-3161) and fax number (1-888-307-0747) where people can provide their views and get more information
- Regional consultation dialogues in communities across Ontario in the new year
- A health symposium with health care and community organizations to discuss trends, priorities and potential strategic directions with health care associations and related groups
- Roundtable dialogues with francophone and aboriginal organizations
- Focus groups with the general population, front-line health care providers, rural Ontarians, seniors, low income individuals, youth, women, disabled people, new Canadians, francophones, aboriginals, gay and lesbian individuals, caregivers, and homeless people
- Surveys and web-based panels of Ontarians to discuss health care values, priorities and expectations

www.health.gov.on.ca

For further information: Media Contacts: David Spencer, Minister's Office, (416) 327-4320; A.G. Klei, Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, (416) 314-6197; Members of the general public: 1-866-532-3161

Everyday in Canada, one more Aboriginal person will find out that they have been infected with HIV.

This is a critical time to become more aware of this pandemic that is affecting all Aboriginal communities across Canada. Lots of information and resources exist online about how everyone CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE and help to stop the spread of HIV and AIDS. For example, more information about this disease can be obtained by visiting

http://www.caan.ca/aaaw/ and The Canadian Aboriginal AIDS Network Inc. (CAAN) at http://www.caan.ca/english/home.htm

Nishnawbe Aski Nations AIDS awareness initiative at http://aids.nan.on.ca/

Click here for the UNESCO - Communication, information and HIV/AIDS web site that contains lots of valuable links ...

HIV/AIDS is a social issue. It involves every human being. Communication and information can help to HIV/AIDS understanding and prevention.

Click here to read the Winnipeg Free Press full story - Project fights AIDS epidemic in aboriginal communities
Thu Nov 30 2006 - By Mia Rabson

OVER six years ago, Jocelyn Paul lay alone in a hospital bed in New Brunswick and was told she had full-blown AIDS.

The St. Mary's First Nation grandmother didn't have any idea what it meant or when or how she contracted it. Her only thought was that she had just days left to live.

"I could feel my spirit dying," Paul said Wednesday, speaking in Winnipeg at the launch of a new project designed to train aboriginal community groups in Manitoba to better address the growing epidemic of AIDS and HIV in the province. ...

Press Release ....

Inuit Leaders Join Together to Recognize Aboriginal AIDS Awareness Week
November 28, 2006

Ottawa – In recognition of Aboriginal AIDS Awareness Week, December 1 st – 5 th, Martha Greig, President of Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada, Mary Simon, President of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and Nancy Karetak-Lindell, Member of Parliament for Nunavut, have joined together to voice the need to address the issues surrounding HIV/AIDS that are affecting Inuit today.

Given that northern communities have the highest birth and sexually transmitted infection rates in Canada, there is a growing concern that the rate of HIV infections amongst Inuit may be higher than the current available statistics show. Globally, the fastest increasing rate of HIV infections is in women 15-25 years of age.

“This is an alarming statistic,” said Mary Simon. “The education and health systems should work together to ensure young people are informed in an appropriate way about this disease.”

According to the Canadian Aboriginal AIDS Network “every day in Canada at least one Aboriginal person will find out they have been infected with HIV.” Many Inuit do not get tested for HIV, either because of fear of discrimination, denial or a lack of knowledge of the disease. Stigmatization can prevent people from getting tested, which can result in the increased risk and spread of HIV/AIDS in communities.

According to Nancy Karetak-Lindell, “because of the discrimination that does exist, Inuit who test HIVpositive often feel unwelcome in their own communities and may not seek the medical help required to cope with living with the disease.”

“It is essential to take charge of all aspects of sexual health, and raise awareness about HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis C and other sexually transmitted infections as it is our future generations that will be most affected,” stated Martha Greig.

She added, “Currently there are no AIDS service organizations in the North. People who are HIVpositive
must travel south to receive care and treatment. It is essential that community members work towards the establishment of treatment programs and services to ensure that all Inuit faced with the challenge of living with HIV are given the right of access to care in the communities in which they live.”

“The lack of data hinders opportunities to design cultural and social health promotion strategies that will address discrimination and behaviour patterns with respect to HIV/AIDS,” said Katherine Minich, Chairperson of the Ajunnginiq (Inuit) Centre’s Governing Committee. “Vulnerable Inuit, those currently infected and at risk, need public health efforts to empower and control the circumstances of their well being in the health care system and in the North.”

Inuit organizations, including Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada and the Ajunnginiq (Inuit) Centre at the National Aboriginal Health Organization, are working to provide information and raise awareness of health issues such as HIV/AIDS among health care providers and Inuit communities.

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The Sioux Lookout First Nations Health Authority (www.nodin.on.ca) is working with K-Net to webcast their district chiefs meeting. The meeting is taking place this week in Sioux Lookout at the Sunset Suites.

One important item on the agenda is to discuss the First Nation distribution formula for Health Canada's Reinvestment Fund. The Reinvestment Fund are the millions of dollars saved by Health Canada after they transferred the administration of the former Zone Hospital over to the Sioux Lookout Menoyawin Health Centre. Under the four party agreement, these funds were suppose to begin to be available for First Nation health services.

Everyone is invited to watch the live video webcast of the chiefs' meeting and presentations by visiting http://www.nodin.on.ca/webcast.htm during the following time slots:

• Wednesday November 29 - 11:15am - 12 Noon
• Wednesday November 29 - 1pm - 4:30pm
• Thursday November 30 - 9:30am - 12:30pm

If the video does not display on your window you will need to download a codex onto your computer that supports the display of the live video stream. The codex can be downloaded to your computer by clicking on http://webcast.knet.ca/VCGSUSetup.exe

The Sexual Health and Wellness Sharing Circle is now up and running!  This circle is for education and the sharing of information related to sexual health, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), relationships, condom use and birth control, and HIV/AIDS.  This site is also for asking questions and having discussions on topics related to sexual health and wellness.  The information is presented in an interesting format to help visitors and participants have a enjoyable learning experience about these important topics!

Please feel free to enroll or subscribe at any point, or just visit as a guest.  Don't forget to check out the workshop materials, as well as the Aboriginal specific information related to HIV/AIDS. 

Also, there are four quizzes to help challenge your knowledge on topics such as STIs and HIV/AIDS.  Each quiz has 15 questions, made up of a variety of multiple choice and true/false questions!

Everyone is welcome to visit the site, share their stories, learn from each other and ask respectful questions!  There will be some tweaking of the page now and then, with new announcements posted, and hopefully the discussion board will be busy with your submissions and questions!

The site address is http://meeting.knet.ca/moodle/course/view.php?id=77.  It can also be found through the K-Net Meeting place website by clicking on the "Health" department and then finding "Sexual Health and Wellness" under the "Meeting Areas" heading.

Ian Wilson (aphextwin@shaw.ca), a youth volunteer scholar from British Columbia, is visiting the Sioux Lookout area for a four or five month period in the hope of sharing some of his knowledge and information with others. He is volunteering and working with Nishnawbe Aski Nation, Wahsa Distance Education Centre, Queen Elizabeth District High School and with the K-Net team. His online sharing circle provides a great opportunity for everyone to learn about healthy sexual behaviours and wellness. Please take the time to welcome Ian and share your stories and information about this important topic.

The Toronto Star's Atkinson series provides another essay by Marie Wadden on an important issue facing our society where alcohol consumption (like smoking cirgarettes) seems to be an honoured right for young people (or so the corporations tell us in their ads) ... Fetal Alcohol Sprectrum Disorder or FASD.

From http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1163976614517&call_pageid=1096063291893&col=1096063291594

Troubled before they were born - Mothers' alcohol abuse leaves scars

Aboriginal kids face consequences - Nov. 20, 2006 - MARIE WADDEN - ATKINSON FELLOW

An impish Innu boy named J.B. Rich from an impoverished Labrador community might not appear to have much in common with the son of a former Canadian prime minister.

What Rich and Michel Chrétien share is the tragedy that befell them before they were born, ultimately leading to the destruction of one and the survival of the other.

Both came into the world — Michel in 1968 and Rich in 1989 — with a preventable brain disorder that has left a swath of destruction in its wake, particularly in the Aboriginal community. It occurred when alcohol their mothers drank seeped into the placenta and was absorbed by their developing brains, causing them to develop fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, or FASD.

The Canadian Pediatric Society says individuals with FASD have poor organizational skills, make poor choices and are unable to foresee the consequences of their actions. They are also impulsive, show inappropriate behaviour because they can't read social cues, are excessively friendly and lack inhibition. This makes them very difficult to parent.

Rich's brain damage caused him to repeatedly get in trouble with the law until he ended his own life. Michel Chrétien also got into a lot of trouble, but he sobered up, thanks to considerable financial and emotional support from his parents.

People with FASD have precarious lives that could turn from bad to worse on a dime. It's estimated that nine in 1,000 babies in Canada have FASD; it is believed to be much higher in many Aboriginal areas.

The extent of the problem has prompted some experts to fear for the cultural survival of some Aboriginal communities.

"If we don't act now we will end up with a lot of very dysfunctional individuals making decisions for their community, and because they are the majority, then things will really become very bleak for the community itself," says Dr. Ted Rosales, a pediatric geneticist who was one of the first Canadian specialists to take on the FASD challenge.

He first saw FASD in a non-Aboriginal community in Newfoundland 27 years ago. "I went into a delivery room in Grand Falls," he recalls, "and the smell of alcohol was so powerful you'd think it was a brewery. The baby had been soaking in alcohol throughout the pregnancy."

By the time that child and several of his brothers were teenagers they wound up in jail. Rosales learned a lot more about the condition, but his message of alcohol abstinence during pregnancy was rarely taken seriously.

Not very much was known about FASD in 1971 when Aline and Jean Chrétien adopted their son Michel from an orphanage in the Northwest Territories.

In fact, the term "fetal alcohol syndrome" was only coined two years later by researchers in Seattle who wrote up their findings in the medical journal, Lancet.

The antics of a 20-month-old-boy, playing in an Inuvik orphanage crib, caught the attention of Aline and her husband, who was then minister of Indian and northern affairs. They adopted the lively toddler who grew up beside their daughter France and son Hubert.

"Michel was beautiful," Aline Chrétien recalled as she spoke to me at an Ottawa reception in April. "We fell in love with him."

Michel Chrétien's birth mother, a Tetlit Gwich'in woman from Fort MacPherson, grew up in extreme poverty with 12 siblings. She was unaware of the consequences of drinking alcohol during pregnancy.

A recent study of Aboriginal health in Quebec suggests the awareness level is still low for young Aboriginal women. Aboriginal girls in that province, between the ages of 15-17, drink significantly more than boys of the same age and 62 per cent are sexually active.

There is little or no information in many Aboriginal high schools on birth control and FASD. Posters about the problem are usually in English, the second language of many First Nations and Inuit people.

Rosales saw first-hand the extent of the FASD problem in Aboriginal communities in 2001.

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`Aline and I have suffered when our son has suffered'

Jean Chrétien, former prime minister

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That's when 40 Labrador Innu children were evacuated to St. John's, Nfld., for routinely inhaling gas fumes from plastic bags. Rosales was asked to examine them. They were closely supervised for four months in Grace Hospital, which became a laboratory for one of the most heart-rending experiments in Canadian history.

"We did the best ever in terms of laboratory evaluation. We did all kinds of blood works, chromosome studies and cranial ultrasound, even MRI on some of them," Rosales says. "We concluded that 29 of these 40 children have FASD."

The children called the kindly doctor, who is a native of the Philippines, "Dr. Miyagi" (after a character in the Karate Kid movies) as he made his daily rounds in the locked-down facility. The situation was chaotic because, Rosales says, it's not a good idea to confine so many children with FASD in a single space.

Rosales says the ringleader of widespread mischief at the hospital was J.B. Rich, then 12 years old.

"He was the first one brave enough to call me Dr. Miyagi to my face," Rosales remembers with a smile. "You know, whatever came to his mind, he'd say. And if he thought of doing something, he went ahead and did it. He was always in the middle of trouble."

Michel Chrétien got into a lot of trouble too. He was convicted of impaired driving in Banff, Alta., in 1988 when he was 19.

"Poor Michel," his mother says. "He has an uncle who died from the disease of alcoholism. It's a real problem for him."

Two years later, he was charged with sexually assaulting a young woman in Montreal. His biological mother attended the trial with the Chrétiens.

Michel Chrétien spent two years in a maximum-security prison in Quebec and one year at a minimum-security prison in the Northwest Territories. When he was released, he rented a room in his birth mother's apartment in Yellowknife. After three years, that situation deteriorated and his birth mother accused the Chrétiens of being too indulgent with their adopted son.

Michel lived for a time in Regina where he was put on probation for throwing something at a child who upset him.

Bonnie Buxton, author of Damaged Angels: A Mother Discovers the Terrible Cost of Alcohol in Pregnancy, says addiction affects a majority of individuals with FASD. Nearly 60 per cent have trouble with the law; 80 per cent have trouble finding work and living independently while 95 per cent suffer a mental-health disorder.

In 2002, Michel Chrétien was exonerated on another sexual assault charge, but acknowledged his problems with drugs and alcohol in court. His father made a public statement.

"Aline and I have suffered when our son has suffered and have been deeply concerned by any harm that may have come to others as a result of his conduct. We are deeply discouraged by his apparent relapse. We have offered all of our care and support to him in good times and bad, and we will continue to stand with him."

In April, when I spoke to Aline Chrétien, Michel was living in a supportive Aboriginal community in Minnesota where he seems to have found the stability he needs to cope with his life-long disability.

"Jean, he loves that boy and says if we hadn't adopted him he'd probably be dead by now," his mother says. "Michel has been sober for six months and we are just hoping it will last."

J.B. Rich had not been as lucky.

After examining the Innu children, Rosales wrote a report recommending continuing care for those affected by FASD. Instead, he says, they were sent home after some counselling and solvent-abuse therapy.

Rosales next saw J.B. Rich four years later in a courtroom in Goose Bay, Labrador. The doctor sat there and listened to the litany of petty crimes the boy committed throughout his teens. He learned that Rich was in and out of the Goose Bay Correctional Centre, that his life was going nowhere. When it came time to take the witness stand in Rich's defence, Rosales lashed out at the officials who let this happen.

"If they had done what I had suggested, if he'd been given the community resources I said he'd need, this wouldn't have happened. I spelled it out. My recommendation was that all these children need ongoing lifelong resources and support. But my report never got any attention from the provincial, federal governments and local community. It (the treatment and testing) cost $6.5 million to do this and it was shelved."

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`My recommendation was that all these children need ongoing lifelong resources and support'

Dr. Ted Rosales, a pediatric geneticist

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It's not the waste of money that concerns Rosales. It's the waste of lives.

After testifying that day, Rosales spent some time with Rich.

"I asked how he was and whether he had a girlfriend and so forth," Rosales remembers. "He wasn't the same, not talkative at all. He was so changed. And I was really puzzled by that. Looking back, I think that it was dawning on him. Everything that was going wrong, and why."

The judge sentenced Rich to 40 days of community service. Several weeks after the trial, J.B. hanged himself. He was 17.

"A few weeks later his brother Charlie did the same," Rosales says. "Charlie also had FASD. I should have done more."

Both young men are buried now beside one another at the graveyard in Natuashish with identical wooden crosses decorated with plastic flowers, rosary beads and their baseball caps.

"I almost gave up doing diagnosis for the courts," the doctor says. "What's the point of having people like J.B. hear they have FASD if they are not going to get services to help them? But I have to keep diagnosing and talking about it because I want the children with FASD helped and I want mothers helped so they will stop drinking."

He thinks the best way to halt the spread of this condition is to raise the standard of living in Aboriginal communities and launch a public health campaign promoting alcohol abstinence on the scale of tobacco cessation programs in the south.

"From a public health point of view, that's the only program I know that will work," Rosales says. "Unless things are changed now, I think their very existence as a culture, as a very unique group of individuals, is really at stake."

Rosales spends some of his free time poring over portraits of Aboriginal people in museums and history books, looking for evidence of FASD in their past. He can't find it.

He looks closely at the space between the eyes; the upper lip and nose. People brain-damaged by intrauterine exposure to alcohol have characteristic facial conditions that Rosales can't find in the pictures he has examined.

He has concluded that prior to the 1950s the condition, if it existed, was indiscernible in Aboriginal societies.

"I've never seen an FASD face in the old pictures," he says of his informal historical research. "I'm certain it wasn't a problem for Aboriginal people in the past."

Rosales fears the very survival of Aboriginal cultures is threatened if the condition is not prevented. "If alcohol use during pregnancy is not stopped, the next generation will not have the brain capacity to appreciate their own culture as something they should be proud of," he says.

What's needed for those with FASD now, Rosales says, are individuals who can act as "second brains," helping loved ones and friends make better decisions.

In Sheshatshiu, an Innu nurse named Mary Pia Benuen does that for children affected with the condition. She keeps track of their progress in school, advocates for services and runs prevention programs. There isn't enough money in Aboriginal health budgets to ensure the same services are available everywhere they're needed.

Aline Chrétien is one of her son's "second brains."

"I bought Michel a computer recently," she says, "because he needed one. But I won't give him money in case he doesn't use it wisely. Jean and I talk to him a lot on the telephone. We love him very much."

Rosales has been so deeply affected by his work in Labrador he has postponed his retirement. In one community, he estimates as many as 35 per cent of the people have FASD — close to what he sees as a tipping point for cultural destruction in another generation or two. Michael Miltenberger, the minister of health for the Northwest Territories, says he believes FASD is just as widespread in Aboriginal communities there as well.

"You see how they have existed for a thousand and some years and then in a short period of time, 50 to 60 years, their whole culture and unique ways of life might go down the drain if this is not stopped," warns Rosales.

All successful community programs and services require local input and support during all stages of development and operation. Seems simple enough. But the newspaper article below shows that some things never change when it comes to control of the resources (millions of dollars) to address issues, especially when it comes to Aboriginal health initiatives. The Health Canada controlled Labrador Innu Comprehensive Healing Strategy and the FNIB Pandemic Planning initiative are two examples presented below.

From http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1163803813494&call_pageid=968332188774

Helping the Innu help themselves

Alcohol abuse, kids sniffing gasoline prompted a government healing strategy for the Labrador Innu

But there is a growing gulf between the healers and the people to be healed, Marie Wadden reports

Nov. 18, 2006. 06:38 AM
MARIE WADDEN - ATKINSON FELLOW

In Natuashish, an Innu community in Newfoundland and Labrador, 8-month-old Thomas James Rich is just starting to make sense of the world around him. He gets excited and kicks his tiny feet whenever his 20-year-old mother, Victoria, picks him up.

Thomas is one of the new generation of Innu, growing up under the care of an unprecedented government campaign designed to give him a better life.

But 400 kilometres away in Goose Bay, Nympha Byrne, a Natuashish native who works for Health Canada, feels slapped in the face by people who are part of the same campaign.

Such is the contradiction and the missteps that haunt the Labrador Innu Comprehensive Healing Strategy, a federal program designed to heal the social, health, drug addiction, alcoholism and safety problems of 3,000 people in the Innu communities of Natuashish and Sheshatshiu.

Despite lofty intentions and even some victories, the program's worst enemies are the people who run it and who have shut the Innu out of the decision-making process. It has created an ever-widening gulf between the healers and the people to be healed.

At stake are the youth, who are dying at an alarming rate from suicide and addiction, and babies like Thomas, whose future depends on stopping the cycle of tragedy in the communities.

Thomas's 20-year-old father, diagnosed five years ago with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, just got out of jail and is back to inhaling gasoline. Thomas's 19-year-old uncle committed suicide in April. His mother, sober now, dropped out of school at 12 and spent her teenage years inhaling gasoline fumes. In this baby's community, suicide and alcohol abuse are the main causes of death.

The Healing Strategy, initiated in 2001, is halfway through its 10-year mandate. Two consultants' reports — completed in 2003 but whose contents were just recently made public — have been critical of its progress.

The reports — one by the Health Research Unit at Memorial University in St. John's, the other by IER Planning and the Aboriginal Research Institute of Ottawa — say bureaucrats got off to a bad start by making decisions without Innu input, and showed a lot of insensitivity toward the people they're supposed to be helping.

"The federal government and the province of Newfoundland and Labrador have not shared sufficient information with the Innu regarding the Healing Strategy," says the IER report. "This must change. The Labrador Innu need to be brought into the loop of information."

Both studies make recommendations to strengthen the plan, but the Innu have seen little improvement.

"The Healing Strategy is unknown to people in the community," a Natuashish leader told the Memorial University evaluators. "A presentation has never been made within the community."

Not enough has been done to train Innu in the field of social work, addictions and mental health, the evaluators say, yet these skills are necessary since it's difficult to attract qualified outsiders to these communities.

"I'd love to be trained as a therapist," says Rose Gregoire, who spends her days pushing paper as case manager for the alcohol treatment program in Sheshatshiu. Gregoire is well suited for therapy because she is highly respected and worked for years in her community helping social workers who didn't speak the language or know Innu families.

Sarah Archer, Health Canada's regional director in Atlantic Canada, says there's an assessment underway to find out what training Innu health workers need. The Innu say this has taken so long there'll be few graduates by the time the Healing Strategy ends.

The evaluators agree it's taking a long time to make decisions.

"The Healing Strategy has a significant number of committees, tables and working groups," the IER report notes. "However, there does not seem to be a clear decision-making relationship. This is demonstrated by a high level of uncertainty — certainly among the Innu — about how decisions are being made and who is making them."

This disconnect was very real to Byrne, the only Innu working for the Labrador Health Secretariat, a branch of Health Canada based now in Goose Bay but first established in Halifax, thousands of kilometres away from the people it was created to help. In July, an internal draft memo titled Safety and Security: Travelling to Natuashish was placed on her desk.

"The well-being of staff is of utmost importance when travelling," the memo read. "It is preferred that staff travel in pairs when going to Natuashish."

The people Byrne loves most in the world live in Natuashish. It's her hometown. She doesn't think it's a dangerous place, but her boss and colleagues do. She was humiliated and insulted by the memo.

"I couldn't face the staff meeting, I just went home," she says. Byrne received an apology from her boss, but it hasn't made her feel any better. She can't understand why the warning was necessary since no Health Canada employee has ever been hurt in Natuashish.

"I don't think that's fair to our people," she says.

The memo has also offended the chief of Sheshatshiu.

"Why are Health Canada staff talking about their own safety when we have children who are not safe in our communities?" asks Anastasia Qupee. "We still have children walking around late at night, there are lots of drugs in the communities, a lot of children in temporary care. They're supposed to be helping us. What are they doing? It may have ended our only hope of being able to work together."

Archer says problems like this are not unusual. "The process of relationship-building takes much longer with Aboriginal people than it does with other communities," she says. The secretariat was based first in Halifax, she says, because it was hard to attract staff to Labrador.

The evaluators would like to see more money spent on Innu initiatives that take troubled families to remote camps for spiritual and traditional treatment.

When the Labrador Innu Comprehensive Healing Strategy was created, the federal government committed $81 million over three years, with $59 million going to Indian and Northern Affairs (to relocate Davis Inlet residents to Natuashish), $20 million to Health Canada and $2 million to the former solicitor general's ministry.

Bureaucrats from all three departments, plus the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, were asked to design the strategy. Unbelievably, Innu representatives were not invited to these meetings.

Today, the Innu are invited to frequent meetings chaired by a federal negotiator, but remain frustrated. They see what's happening now as a repeat of past federal government policies.

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Little Thomas Rich's future was compromised 40 years ago.

"In the 1960s, the self-sufficient lifestyle of the Labrador Innu came to an abrupt end with the settling of the two communities of Davis Inlet and Sheshatshiu by the federal government," the IER evaluators write. "Signs of addictive behaviour and social/family dysfunction became apparent. Widespread alcohol use was prevalent by 1970."

Alcohol abuse was certainly prevalent when Thomas's mother, Victoria, was born in 1986 to parents who were both alcoholics.

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`I see kids on the road sniffing gas, and I'm not allowed to counsel them'

Nympha Byrne, an Innu who works for Health Canada

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Her birthplace, Davis Inlet, on the Labrador coast, was an isolated "fly-in" community with some boat transportation during the summer. It was a bad place to relocate a hunting society since for most of the year, the 600 Innu had no way to get off the small island that also lacked adequate fresh water for a growing population.

Despite the isolation, it made international headlines a number of times during Victoria's childhood. When she was 5, a fire killed six preschool children who had been left alone while their parents were out drinking.

A few months later, a native constable took video that was broadcast around the world, showing teens in Davis Inlet, high on gasoline, threatening to kill themselves.

The publicity didn't change the living conditions. By the time Victoria was a teen, she was inhaling gas fumes, too.

"I seen everything I didn't see before," she says about her fume-induced hallucinations. "Boys. They were small. Tiny-like. They are on my eyes. But everybody told me there's nothing in my eye. I told them I saw the Backstreet Boys, but they said it was nothing. I was seeing it because I was sniffing gas."

In the 1990s, the band council hired a psychologist, Dr. Wayne Hammond, who had helped troubled native children in Western Canada kick solvent abuse.

"Our plan was to build a stabilization home where kids who were really out of control could be brought and where we would work with the family as a whole," Hammond says.

"We also planned to develop alternate activities for kids in town so they'd have something else to do instead of hanging out at night. We were looking at a kind of caregiver model where we would train people within the community to work with kids and families."

Hammond says a lot of public money might have been saved had the bureaucrats respected the Innu plan. Instead, the problems reached a crisis point in December 2000, and Victoria and 39 other children had to be evacuated for their own safety.

"They took us to St. John's," she remembers, "and they locked us in a room for two or three hours. The gas sniffers, they break all the stuff. They break the toilet and the wall and they steal. They wanted to get out. I felt scared."

The children were kept in a decommissioned hospital for four months, then sent to treatment centres and foster homes across Canada — but not cured.

"I think we delayed the healing of the community by 10 or 15 years," Hammond says, "because Health Canada and Indian and Northern Affairs didn't have the courage to step out of the box."

Victoria doesn't inhale gasoline now, or drink alcohol. What has helped her most, she says, is her parents' sobriety.

"My mother and my father, they stopped drinking almost two years now, and I'm happy for them and I'm trying to get along with them," she says.

Her parents' sobriety is one of the Healing Strategy's success stories. The relocation of Davis Inlet residents to Natuashish has given people a reason to stop drinking. A treatment program designed and administered by Indians in Western Canada is doing the rest.

In Natuashish, there's clean drinking water, a state-of-the-art septic system, beautiful homes, a large, light-filled school, an arena, band council building and, coming soon, a healing lodge and shelter for victims of family violence.

"Physical construction and relocation is a qualified success, but social reconstruction is lacking," the IER report noted in 2003.

Victoria and her mother, Mary Agathe, are part of the Innu-run Natuashish Health Clinic where sobriety is a condition of employment.

Much of the sobriety is thanks to Nechi (the Cree word for "friend"), an educational, research and health promotions centre created by Indians in Alberta 35 years ago, specializing in addiction recovery.

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The Innu want the Labrador Health Secretariat disbanded so they can use its funding to administer the remaining years of the Healing Strategy themselves.

This is not likely to fly with the civil servants who administer the program at Health Canada's First Nations and Inuit Health Branch (FNIB), says Dr. Valerie Gideon.

Gideon, the senior director of Health and Social Policy at the Assembly of First Nations, says federal government departments will always support their own staff at the expense of communities.

"For pandemic planning, FNIB has set up a major office of community medicine in Ottawa and hired 40 people," Gideon says. "They have not replicated that investment in First Nations communities or in First Nations organizations, so that is a perfect example."

Part of the solution rests with Sharon Clarke's National Native Addictions Partnership Foundation, which is creating a cross-cultural course that will be available to bureaucrats and others working in Aboriginal communities. Clarke hopes it will make them less fearful of their clients by teaching about language, traditions and the historical context of social problems.

"So that anybody who wants to work in Aboriginal communities has to have that module before they go in," she says.

For Nympha Byrne, the solution lies in helping the Innu heal Innu.

"Sometimes, I'm ashamed to say that I'm a Health Canada worker," says Byrne, who was hired as an addictions therapist but is not doing that job. "I see kids on the road sniffing gas, and I'm not allowed to counsel them. I'm only allowed to do presentations. I find that really painful."

Byrne, the only secretariat employee who speaks the Innu language, believes she'd be more useful working in her home community rather than from an office in Goose Bay.

"I don't think they trust me to work out of their sight," she says.

"They're supposed to be providing expertise," says Mary May Osmonde, director of social health in Sheshatshiu. "But we rarely see them in our communities. We don't know what they are doing in their offices.

"I'm very disappointed. Maybe the government wants us to fail. If we succeed and our people are healed, many bureaucrats will lose their jobs."

But Archer says Byrne and the rest of the secretariat staff are not supposed to provide direct services like counselling; their job is to provide advice and help manage the money that is being spent.

In spite of the gulf that exists, there is one fundamental that everyone involved in the Healing Strategy agrees on: Thomas James Rich and children like him deserve a better life.

WORLD TELEVISION PREMIERE! on APTN

The Gift of Diabetes

Tuesday, November 21st - 10pm ET/PT
repeating Wednesday, November 22nd - 1am ET/PT and 2pm ET/PT

In 2001, complications from advanced diabetes left filmmaker Brion Whitford with only 50 percent kidney function and blood sugar levels that were spiraling out of control. The Gift of Diabetes follows Brion's struggle to regain his health by learning about The Medicine Wheel, a holistic tool grounded in an Aboriginal understanding of the interconnectedness of all dimensions of life: the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.

"The film is a very powerful teaching tool and will go far in educating all in the struggle of living with diabetes."
National Aboriginal Diabetes Association

For more information on THE GIFT OF DIABETES visit - www.nfb.ca

To join the NFB Film Club visit - www.nfb.ca/nfbfilmclub

Press release from the International Diabetes Federation (www.idf.org)

November 14th is World Diabetes Day (www.worlddiabetesday.org)

BRUSSELS, Belgium, Nov. 11 - World Diabetes Day is celebrated every year on 14 November. The date commemorates the birthday of Frederick Banting, who, along with Charles Best, is credited with the discovery of insulin in 1921.

In almost every country of the world, diabetes is on the rise. The current number of people with diabetes stands at over 230 million. The disease is a leading cause of blindness, kidney failure, amputation, heart attack and stroke. It is one of the most significant causes of death, responsible for a similar number of deaths each year as HIV/AIDS.

President of the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) Professor Pierre Lefebvre outlines the facts: "Over a fifty year period, diabetes has become a global problem of devastating human, social and economic impact. The total number of people living with diabetes is increasing by more than 7 million per year. If nothing is done, the global epidemic will affect over 350 million people within a generation. Unchecked, diabetes threatens to overwhelm healthcare services in many countries and undermine the gains of economic advancement in the developing world."

The theme chosen by the IDF and WHO for this year's World Diabetes Day is 'diabetes in the disadvantaged and the vulnerable'. Diabetes representative organizations worldwide are drawing attention to diabetes health inequalities and promoting the message that every person with diabetes has the right to the highest attainable healthcare that their country can provide.

Diabetes hits the poorest hardest

Contrary to the widely held perception that diabetes is a disease of the affluent, studies show that the economically disadvantaged are at higher risk. The global picture reveals that within 20 years 80% of all people with diabetes will live in low- and middle-income countries, in many of which there is little or no access to life-saving and disability-preventing diabetes treatments.

In affluent countries, people who are relatively poor are at greater risk of type 2 diabetes. In the USA, for example, households with the lowest incomes have the highest incidence of diabetes.

A cruel choice

The impact of diabetes on these individuals and their families is often devastating. It is estimated that poor people with diabetes in some developing countries spend as much as 25% of their annual income on diabetes care. As IDF President-Elect Martin Silink puts it, "For some, the consequences of diabetes can be merciless. The economically disadvantaged are pushed further into poverty and face a terrible choice: pay for treatment and face catastrophic debt, or neglect their health and face disability or premature death."

The elderly, ethnic minorities and indigenous communities are all disproportionately affected by the diabetes epidemic. In developed countries, people over the age of 65 are almost 10 times more likely to develop diabetes than people in the 20-40 year age group. In the United States, it is estimated that one in two people from ethnic minorities born in the year 2000 will develop diabetes during their lifetime, compared to one in three for the general population. In Canada, the prevalence of diabetes among First Nation peoples is three to five times higher than that of the general population in the same age group. The same is true among Australian Aborigines.

To do nothing is not an option

The diabetes epidemic threatens to be one of the greatest health catastrophes the world has ever seen. To coincide with November 14th this year, the International Diabetes Federation is calling on the global diabetes community to rally behind the campaign for a United Nations Resolution on diabetes by signing an online petition at www.unitefordiabetes.org and passing a virtual version of the blue circle that has come to symbolise diabetes.

Note to Editors:

The International Diabetes Federation (IDF) is an organization of over 190 member associations in more than 150 countries. Its mission is to promote diabetes care, prevention and a cure worldwide. IDF leads the campaign for a UN Resolution on diabetes. See www.unitefordiabetes.org.

World Diabetes Day is an initiative of the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) and the World Health Organization (WHO). Visit www.worlddiabetesday.org for further information.

For further information: Kerrita McClaughlyn, IDF Media Relations, office +32-2-5431639, mobile +32-487-530625, kerrita@idf.org.

Press Release ...

Thunder Bay, ON:  How do local businesses maintain a healthy and resilient workforce while faced with the challenges of increased economic pressures? These and other issues will be confronted at the Northwestern Ontario Work and Wellness Conference, unveiled today by Family Services Thunder Bay. The theme of the conference is “Survive and Thrive: Promoting Resiliency in your Workplace” and will feature key note speakers Nora Spinks and Dr. Louise Hartley at the Valhalla Inn on March 6th and 7th 2007.

It was also announced that Family Services Thunder Bay will unveil its own new organizational image at the conference; the result of a re-branding and marketing strategy currently being developed thanks to Ontario Trillium Foundation funding.

Says Nancy Chamberlain, Executive Director of Family Services Thunder Bay: “Maintaining a high level of organizational wellness is directly linked to workplace productivity, yet is becoming less of a priority in today’s economic climate for employers. Employers and employees participating in the conference will gain practical strategies on how to reduce incidents of stress and sick leave within the workplace and how to create more healthy working environments. It is proven that healthy workplaces make for more prosperous businesses, happier families and as a result, stronger communities.” 

Areas for discussion at the 2007 Work and Wellness Conference include topics such as: substance use in the workplace, the use of workplace computers, bringing nutrition to work, leadership and management styles, managing work and balancing family time, amongst other organizational work wellness practices.   

Continues Nancy Chamberlain: “We are also excited about revealing our new Family Services brand and moving forward with an image that better represents our wide range of programs, which includes community counseling as well as corporate development services.

For more registration information contact: Family Services Thunder Bay at: 807-684-1880, email: conference@fstb.net or visit:  www.fstb.net.

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Keynote speaker Nora Spinks is President of Work-Life Harmony Enterprises, an international consulting and training firm based in Toronto.  For more than 20 years, Nora has been providing leadership to leading corporations, governments, labour and community groups on work-life issues by focusing on creating supportive work environments, strengthening families and building healthy communities.

Keynote speaker Dr. Louise Hartley is Vice President of Employee and Organizational Health at Family Services Employee Assistance Programs in Toronto.  FSEAP pioneered Employee Assistance Programming in Canada in 1975 and now provides services to more than 400,000 employees across the continent. Over the past 29 years, Dr. Hartley has developed expertise in the field of organizational development that includes both individual and team interventions designed to build healthy work environments.

Media Contact: 

Lisa Kokanie, Firedog Communications
Tel: 807-767-4443, Fax: 807-767-4479, Cell: 807-624-7868 Email: lisa@firedogpr.com

The Eel Ground students and school staff invite everyone to contribute and participate in this Nation-wide discussion on "Teenage Stress" via videoconferencing on Tuesday, November 21.

We are soliciting presentations from First Nation schools and organizations and hope to have national input and discussions. In short, interesting presentations are in special demand! Please contact Peter MacDonald (macdonal@nbnet.nb.ca.), principal of Eel Ground School, to notify him of any content that you would like to share.

Testing of all content (powerpoint, digital video, songs) and participating sites will be done 24 hours in advance, on Monday the 20th.

• Download Announcement and Videoconference Schedule Poster
• Eel Ground School