Tuberculosis high amongst Manitoba Indians

Page 2

Overcrowded living conditions, substandard sewer and water systems and poverty are blamed for the high rate of tuberculosis infection among Indians in Manitoba.

Dr. Earl Hershfield, director of Manitoba's tuberculosis control centre, says "tuberculosis should not be a problem in developed countries," because of successful TB vaccines developed in the 1950s.

But Hershfield says that the poor social and health conditions found in many Indian communities are similar to third world countries and that the disease will not subside until "Natives standard of living dramatically improves."

Statistics compiled for the Sanitorium Board of Manitoba's annual report reveal that the incident of tuberculosis among treaty Indians is as much as 10 times the provincial average.

The same report says the number of tuberculosis cases is decreasing among non-Indians, with those most likely to show the effects of the disease being 50 years of age or older.

The statistics would tend to indicate a disease which, among the non-Indian population, ran its course of infection between a quarter and a half a century ago, while among the Indian population it still runs its infectious course.

The lung disease was first brought to Canada by immigrants of European and Oriental descent during their settlement of the country. According to Dr. Peter Talbot, a federal health department official in Manitoba, "It's a long way from being beaten on the Prairies."

He says prairie Indians are particularly vulnerable because of the continent's history of non-Indian settlement.

Since the prairies were the last region to be exposed to the lung disease, its people were the last ones to start building natural immunities to TB, says Talbot.

The Assembly of First Nations health director, Pat Brascoupe, does not totally agree with Dr. Talbot's account of why the disease is so prevalent among Indian people.

"Across the country First Nations are battling situations most Canadians do not even think about," says Brascoupe.

"We all know that the cause of many of these diseases come from intolerable living conditions, yet the federal government is unwilling to talk to us about making changes to deficient and underfunded policies, that perpetuate the problem.

Brascoupe referred to the alarming statistics which account for the high rate of reserves without basic infrastructure, saying "36% of First Nations homes" are overcrowded compared to 7.3% of other Canadian homes. 38% lack basic amenities like indoor toilets compared with less than 2% among non-Indians."

"Furthermore," he says, "nearly half the houses our people live in require major repairs while nationally the figure is 6.7%.

"What Dr. Hershfield has indicated we have known and we must all work harder to resolve these problems now. It will not get better until we do something about the fundamental problems of the quality of our living conditions."

President of the Indian and Inuit Nurses of Canada Jean Goodwill, a victim of the disease in her earlier years in Saskatchewan, says that its appalling that the health and social conditions that breed TB should remain even after years of effort and the monies spent by those responsible for services to Indian people.