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Health care watchdog praises Nunavut's efforts

"We were struck by the enormous good will of the Inuit people"

JIM BELL

Michael Decter, chair of the Health Council of Canada: "The problems are profound here, and they're going to require greater efforts than other parts of the country, but we do see those greater efforts getting underway." (PHOTO BY JIM BELL)

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The head of Canada's national health care watchdog says that though Nunavut's health care problems are "profound," he's impressed at how the people of Nunavut are tackling them.

"We were struck by the enormous good will of the Inuit people. They have quite a good sense of things. Their expectations were for modest and sensible change," said Michael Decter, chair of the Health Council of Canada, in an interview last week.

The 27-person Health Council of Canada was set up last year, as part of the first ministers' agreement on health care funding in February 2003. Its job is to keep an eye on how governments carry out promises made within national health care agreements, and to issue its findings in annual reports to the public.

For Nunavut, the health council will monitor the promises made in the Government of Nunavut's new health care improvement plan, called "Closer to Home."

Under that plan, the GN says it will hire 11 more doctors and 100 more nurses.

"Somebody needs to say to the public, how's that going? Did they get that 100 nurses and 11 doctors? Did it make a difference in outcomes? Did it make a difference in what percentage of patients have to be transferred out of Nunavut for care?" Decter said.

"Closer to Home" is still a working document, and the territorial cabinet has yet to approve it for release to the public.

Because of last week's first ministers' agreement on health care, the council's role has been expanded. And it's now expected to include sections on northern health care in its reports.

"I can tell you the council is of a single mind on the importance of us doing a first-class job of reporting on care in the North and on health in the North," Decter said.

There are two Inuit members on the council: Jose Kusugak, president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, and Nellie Cournoyea, chair of the Inuvialuit Regional Council and a former premier and health minister in the government of the Northwest Territories.

Decter said the role that these aboriginal members play on the council is "absolutely vital."

"Jose Kusugak gave us more insight than we could have ever gleaned into the issues," Decter said.

The council, still less than a year old, visited Nunavut last week to hold meetings in Iqaluit and to visit nursing stations in Panniqtuuq and Kimmirut.

While in Kimmirut, the health council helped produce what Decter called an "unintended" accountability exercise between the community and Bernie Blais, Nunavut's deputy minister of health.

In three hours of meetings with the mayor, hamlet council, and members of the community, Blais, who is also a member of the health council, fielded about 90 per cent of the questions.

Decter says Nunavut's health outcomes, as revealed by statistics, are bad when compared to the rest of Canada. Life expectancy in Nunavut is about 10 years lower than Canada's overall population, and the suicide rate is extraordinarily high.

But at the same time, he said he's "really impressed" with the community health centers.

"The nurses do a phenomenal job. They carry a lot of responsibility, and they take a lot of heat in the communities," Decter said.

He said he's also impressed by Nunavut's telehealth efforts, but he says Nunavut needs more help in educating and training an Inuit health-care work force, and in doing more public health and disease prevention.

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