One major issue currently affecting ageing Indigenous populations living in northern communities in Manitoba is the lack of services and health care supports. CBC News aired a report about an issue that has occurred in Oxford House reporting that 28 seniors were been forced to live in a high school because the roof of their personal care home had caved in. “The high school has no bathing tubs or areas to cook meals, let alone care for vulnerable people at risk of infection, bed sores and pneumonia”, Dr. Walter Hoeppner stated in an interview. He goes on to say that Health Canada has refused to airlift the seniors becuase they are not sick enough. Health Canada said it is working on a plan with the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs and Manitoba's Burntwood Health Authority to have the seniors moved and neither agency would say when that might happen. (CBC News Canada, 2011)
Currently the federal government is responsible for home care service case management, nursing, and homemaking these programs are not meeting all of the home care needs of First Nations Communities. (Prince & Kelly, 2010) However, according to Health Canada 2008, the federal government holds that there is no constitutional obligation or treaty that requires the Canadian government to offer programs or services to Aboriginal peoples (including First Nations living on reserves and Inuit living in settlements). In contrast, Aboriginal peoples link federal health programs to treaty obligation and the broader trustee role of the federal government. (Prince & Kelley, 2010)
As a social work student, throughout my practicum at a personal care home, I have learned how to provide: resources, services and how to advocate for seniors and their families. I feel the most important skill I have developed is advocacy. Advocacy being, "The act of directly representing a course of action on behalf on one or more individuals, groups, or communities, with the goal of securing or retaining social justice (Mickelson, 1995 as stated in Zastrow and Kirst-Ashman, 1997).
Throughout advocating for residents at my practicum placement I have realized that I would like to continue on working with the ageing population. I am interested in doing work with the ageing Indigenous population who are living in Winnipeg who have come from Northern Communities. I believe that this is a useful role as there has been an increase in the Indigenous senior population. One study indicates that;
Within the Aboriginal population, what is changing is the relative size of the elderly population where Older Aboriginal Peoples were among the fastest growing age cohorts between 2001 and 2006 and their relative size in relation to the rest of the Aboriginal population is likely to continue to grow given the growth in age cohorts that are now 55 to 64 and 45 to 54. Geographically, to a large extent these demographic trends are occurring across Canada, and the growing urban nature of the Aboriginal population in general and the Older Aboriginal Peoples will need to be taken into account in the coming decades. (Rosenberg et. al, 2008, p.3)
Some of the research based solutions that can address the need for palliative care research and programs in First Nations communities are:
1) Support Community health care workers who have been trained in palliative care to develop culturally appropriate educational resources and educate other community members about palliative care.
2) Revision of the existing Home and Community Care Program to include palliative care as an essential element of the program and to increase funding levels to meet the increase demand for care and higher level care needs.
3) The promotion of innovative models of integration, consultation, and collaboration that will support primary health care providers in First Nations Communities. (Prince & Kelly, 2010)
In a study conducted by Health Canada in 2008, it was determined that at the present time advocacy is needed in order to stop the inconsistencies in the provision and delivery of home care services, and substantial gaps that exit due to jurisdictional issues and funding efficiencies. (as stated in Marrone, 2007)
As a future social worker and as an Indigenous person I need to continue on educating myself about the needs of Indigenous seniors so that I can be a better support and represent them. Advocacy for Indigenous seniors is needed and their voices need to be heard.
In Winnipeg, there are services and programs for the ageing population that Indigenous people can have access to in Winnipeg. The Indigenous population continually face many challenges that make it difficult for them to receive services and programs such as discrimination, language barriers, transportation issues and isolation. Programs have been developed and services are available in order to help full fill needs to the senior population needs. Indigenous seniors are eligible for these programs that can benefit and provide services to them. Some programs and services are:
Aboriginal Centre of Winnipeg: a gathering place for people and a centre to foster new ideas in education, economic development, social service delivery and training.
Aboriginal Senior Resource Centre: providing resources for aboriginal seniors.
Alzheimer Society of Manitoba: seeks to achieve its mission through community awareness; individual, family and professional education; support programs; and research funding.
Community Seniors Resource Councils (Support Services for Seniors): support older adults as individuals or in groups.
Crisis stabilization units - Salvation Army: support seniors in a crisis.
Housing: Seniors Resource Network: housing services.
Manitoba Home Care Program: Home Care is provided to Manitobans of all ages based on assessed need and taking into account other resources available to the individual including families, community resources and other programs.
Respite (In-home) Services: provide support to caregivers and individuals in order to foster independence and participation in the community.
Supportive Housing: supportive housing for seniors.
-Arlene-
Hi Arlene,
ReplyDeleteI strongly agree with the premise of your article in that advocacy is of key importance when working with older indigenous persons. These people are finding themselves at the cross roads of many intersecting "ism" categories: agism in society, colonialism in the heal care system, and systemic racism, are just a few of the barriers that hinder healthy aging among older indigenous persons.
Something that came to mind as I was reading your article was that perhaps there should be a push for internal advocacy. Just going off of what you said about training health care aids in indigenous communities to do palliative and end of life care; I think that there should be a strong push in advocating for Indigenous persons to be the primary stakeholders in the development of a comprehensive and integrated care strategy in Indigenous communities. This would at least minimize the colonialism that older Aboriginal adults may be experiencing in the health care system.
One last note, another good resource in Winnipeg is the Aboriginal Health and Wellness Centre located on Higgins I believe. They have access to traditional healers and culturally appropriate health education resources.
Thanks for the great article!
-Michelle
Arlene,
ReplyDeletethank you for a very informative post. I appreciate your perspective and future interest on this topic. I agree that advocacy for Indigenous seniors is extremely important and i am excited to hear that you are wanting to do work in this area. I think there are roles for both Indigenous advocates and non-Indigenous allies to come along side Indigenous seniors.
One issue that has struck me particularly since i have been introduced to the issues faced by Indigenous seniors is what happens to those who live in remote communities when illness or increased care needs force these seniors to leave their communities and move to a city where they can receive greater amounts of care. This is an issue that i think needs advocacy. There must be a better way to approach this issue. I cannot imagine the difficulty experienced by those individuals who live their whole life in a small community surrounded by their family and friends only to have to move away for the final portion of their life. Additionally, with the reserve communities i have visited i can imagine that it is especially difficult for seniors who have mobility issues to fully participate in community life. There is currently "age-friendly" community initiatives with in Manitoba. I wonder what this would look like for First Nations communities. Maybe there is potential for advocacy in this area as well. This is a topic i would like to look into further.
thanks
-Meagan
This post is really interesting and informatic.I really liked this post. You write about this topic very well. I really like your blog and I will definetly bookmark it! Keep up the super posts! :)
ReplyDeleteSenior Residence TX
Advocating the rights for indiginouse seniors is a extremly important role that us as social workers need to do. I agree with you that there is a major gap in educating programs to gain aboriginal awareness. The lack of the awareness definalty has an impact on the services that they recieve. The story that you shared about the seniors who had to move into a high school is just outragouse to me. I cannot believe that the government would not support to fly them into care centers closer because they are not classiefied as being sick enough. I could not believe that, but once again it goes to show that the lack of knowledge to this topic clearly plays a major role in services recieved.
ReplyDelete~Jessica
Thanks Arlene; your post was very detailed, and well-researched.
ReplyDeleteFurther to your quote that necessary system changes need to "support primary health care providers in First Nations Communities", I believe all health care profession training needs to begin in the community.
A friend of mine was working at nursing stations in northern communities, and found that the community women who helped her at the station had learned had to most of the nursing jobs by observation. She asked why these women had never gone to university to become nurses, and the response was usually that they wouldn't leave their communities to do the training. We discussed that it seemed if trainers would be willing to come and do apprenticeships in these communities, many people would be willing to get the health care training.
Such a program would be difficult to coordinate, but if a few communities could be used as pilot projects, and create a 'nursing apprenticeship', many people within the community would be capable of learning the skills. This would allow communities to care for themselves, and not rely on urban nurses being flown in at huge federal cost.
It's just a thought, but I'm curious if this idea has ever been thrown around? I know there is university college of the north, but this still requires people to leave their communities for long periods of time. An in-community apprenticeship would not require this.
Something to think about if any of you end up at the policy level...
-Nikki
Hi Arlene,
ReplyDeleteI am very impressed by your detailed and well-researched blog entry. Geez, you should teach me how to improve my writing because yours is very well-done. I completely agree with your discussion on the double standard of healthcare delivery and how this overt discrimination further oppress our older Aboriginal persons. I also appreciate that you highlighted the sacredness of the treaties from Aboriginal peoples' perspective and how sad it is that the federal government does not fully honour this ancient agreement between the “British Crown” and the “People of the Land”. Your identification of your Aboriginal ancestry is a very important component that added richness, validity, and authority to your blogs.
-Darnel
Thank you Arlene for the great post.
ReplyDeleteI am impressed that you are planning to work with the Aboriginal community on the elders segment of the population. As I was reading your post I get the feeling imagining how their life is because they already struggled long time ago on the residential school system. Sadly, they are still struggling until now. They face generational and multiple oppression. However, I am hoping that through the education that are given to social workers by advocating for them, this can be a venue to alter the system so that they’ll be given the chance to have equal rights on the health care system.