Health program receives award

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Health and Wellness employees were among this year's recipients of The Premier's Award of Excellence for their work promoting the health of Aboriginal people across Alberta.

The Aboriginal Health Strategy (AHS) team received a bronze Award of Excellence, one of 36 teams to be recognized.

The awards were established by Premier Ralph Klein in 1994 as a way to recognize government employees for excellence in client service, business practices and supportive work environments.

The AHS team consists of Dave Alexander, director of the federal/provincial relations branch; Phillip Burke, co-ordinator of the AHS; project leaders Keith McLaughlin and Michael Yee; branch administrator Debbie Soloway; and administrative assistant Bernice Gilbert. The team implements the health strategy.

According to Burke, the goal of the AHS is "trying to encourage regional health authorities and Aboriginal communities to sit down and work out a better way to deliver services to Aboriginal people and communities to try to redress the disparity in health status in the Aboriginal community. It really is Alberta Health taking a proactive approach to try to redress what, from all the evidence we have, is a disparity in the health of Aboriginal people."