For Inuit in northern Quebec, care closer to home could cut down on stressful medical travel | 24CA News

If a affected person in Nunavik requires specialised medical care, they need to get on a aircraft and journey greater than 1,400 kilometres to Montreal. 

But a brand new regional hospital proposed in Kuujjuaq, Que., might assist maintain some sufferers nearer to dwelling.

“We deserve it. We need it,” stated Jennifer Munick-Watkins, the brand new govt director of the Nunavik Regional Board of Health and Social Services, which has been urgent for a greater hospital for years.

Nunavik, the autonomous area of northern Quebec, is at present served by two health-care centres, one on every coast  — Ungava Bay and Hudson Bay.

The hospitals are small and outdated and solely supply primary companies. Occasionally, specialists are flown in to deal with sufferers, however their availability is proscribed.

As a outcome, hundreds of sufferers who want specialised medical care don’t have any different choice however to fly south.

That contains everybody from expectant moms with high-risk pregnancies and sufferers who want most cancers remedy, dialysis or extra advanced surgical procedures. It has been this manner for many years.

Being unwell removed from dwelling and away from household and pals is demanding.

“First of all, their first language is Inuktitut, so that means they are already stressed out in ensuring they’re going to have a good translator,” stated Munick-Watkins.

Many sufferers are aged and have to be accompanied by an escort. Typically, an prolonged member of the family will make the journey with them, but it surely’s disruptive and may trigger monetary hardship.

Municik-Watikins, an Inuk who grew up in Kuujjuaq, is keen to see the hospital lastly constructed.

“I’ve heard about it for years, since I was a little girl,” she stated.

The advantages of native care

The journey to Montreal for medical care is widespread amongst residents of Nunavik.

More than 5,000 sufferers and roughly 2,000 escorts travelled to Montreal from Nunavik in 2019-2020, in accordance with Quebec’s Ministry of Health. (In the primary yr of the pandemic, these numbers dropped barely.)

“I think there are a lot of questions that can be posed about the model of health care that has been essentially imposed,” stated Richard Budgell, a Labrador Inuk and an assistant professor within the division of household drugs at McGill University who teaches about Inuit well being.

Every yr, medical transportation between Nunavik and Montreal prices the province tens of tens of millions of {dollars}.

While sufferers get better or obtain remedy, they keep at Ullivik, a relaxation dwelling which opened in 2016 close to the airport.

But the transition to dwelling in Montreal, albeit quickly, will be jarring for some Nunavik residents.

An investigation by 24CA News discovered issues with how the centre was managed and sufferers have repeatedly complained in regards to the facility’s cleanliness, meals and remedy by employees.

“What we’re talking about is temporary housing that can go on for a period of weeks, even months for some people who are either ill or injured,” stated Budgell. “It’s probably fair to say that almost without exception, nobody really wants to be in that facility.”

Although the brand new hospital would not remove all medical transportation, higher entry to medical care within the North might scale back the variety of journeys — and enhance high quality of care. 

“If care is being provided in your own community or at least in your own region, then the likelihood of that care being culturally safe for Inuit is better,” stated Budgell.

“People don’t mind going from a smaller community to Kuujjuaq or Puvirnituq as much as they might mind coming to Montreal.”

Building it, then staffing it

Details of what companies could be provided on the new regional hospital are nonetheless being labored out. The Nunavik well being board and the Ministry of Health are within the strategy planning stage.

Since the province put aside $462 million in 2018-2019 for the mission, building prices have climbed dramatically, so the ultimate invoice could also be a lot greater, stated Marie-Claude Lacasse, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Health.

Once the medical plan is full, an actual location shall be decided and a timeline and price range shall be finalized, stated Lacasse.

Building the hospital is the primary hurdle. Finding the folks to employees it will likely be one other problem, stated Munick-Watkins.

Nunavik is already battling a extreme scarcity of medical doctors and nurses, notably on the Hudson Bay facet of the area.

“We don’t close the hospitals or the CLSCs. We just make sure the services are still there, but sometimes it’s only when emergencies occur,” stated Munick-Watkins.

Given the labour challenges, the federal government could be smart to spend money on packages that practice well being professionals from the Inuit inhabitants, stated Christopher Fletcher, a professor within the division of social and preventive drugs at Université Laval.

Fletcher used to supervise the First Nations and Inuit college students in drugs program and thinks the success it achieved in attracting Indigenous college students might be replicated in different disciplines, notably nursing.

Fletcher stated analysis exhibits sufferers have higher outcomes when the health-care supplier and the affected person share the identical background and language.

Equal pay for equal work might be a superb start line in attracting extra Inuit into the well being occupation, stated Munick-Watkins.

Right now, Inuit workers within the Nunavik well being community are paid lower than workers recruited from the south. 

The working situations are additionally unequal, as these from the south obtain a housing allowance and different perks.

She stated each well being centres are unionized and have collective agreements.

“We’re going to have to figure out how we’re going to iron this out in the coming weeks and months ahead,” she stated.