HCOM urges change for health services on-reserve

The Health Co-Management Secretariat contends that the provincial government plays an important role in reducing the number of children who die in care. “There’s no quick fix, but we can do better, and it starts with improving the on-reserve health system in this province, which currently lags far behind the health system offered in the rest of Alberta,” said Peyasu Wuttunee, coordinator of the HCOM Secretariat. The HCOM Secretariat works to increase the participation of First Nations in assessing, planning and managing programs and services that are funded or offered by Health Canada, First Nations Inuit Health in the Alberta Region. HCOM acts as an advocate for First Nations health interests on behalf of the Chiefs of Treaties 6, 7 and 8. A report recently prepared for the Child Intervention Roundtable, which took place in January, indicated that 58.2 per cent of children in care in Alberta between 1999 and 2012 were Aboriginal, and of the 143 deaths of children in care during that time, 98 of those children were Aboriginal. Wuttunee said maintaining the present health services on-reserve was making a decision. “Doing nothing is a choice. It is choosing to accept the unacceptable. If we don’t work to improve the health of Alberta’s on-reserve communities, the fear is that the number of our children in care will continue to rise, along with the awful outcomes that we’ve seen,” he said.