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The Sioux Lookout Anishinabe
District Health Plan:
Building A Plan To Improve Our Health
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What is the District Health Plan?
The District Health Plan is a
planning project funded by the
Province of Ontario and Health
Canada through March 31, 2006. The goal is to provide better
access to coordinated health services.
What is important?
The Primary
Health Care and Physicians Working Groups, the Chiefs Committee
on Health and the Sioux Lookout Zone Chiefs have listened to
community members and said:
- We are a different culture
and our traditional ways of knowing, being and healing in
community must be respected and included in the plan.
- We need to empower our
people and communities to bring back our ways to ensure our
journey to health.
- As everything is connected,
we must always view and address the “whole”, the “spirit”, to
attain health.
- We all must respect each
others’ ways, as there is value in both.
- We must ensure our people
have access to quality health services that meet our needs.
- Our treaty rights and mutual
agreements must be respected and followed to achieve the
health of our people and communities.
How is ‘what is important’
being included in the plan?
- Our language and traditional
knowledge and healing practices are being included within the
plan. Each community will determine how this occurs.
- We are including the results
of the community surveys in the plan.
- Ways to respect our
different cultures are being included in the plan. For
example, we can teach western health providers about our ways,
and we can increase the number of our people who are health
providers.
- We are finding ways to work
with other governmental departments to address the ‘whole’
problem. For example when we treat a community member for
asthma, we must also address the mold in our homes and the
dust in community.
- We are working with
governments to implement ways that honour our treaty rights
and agreements.
- We will implement this plan,
and have our people manage and deliver the services.
- The plan will help and
support each community to deliver the health services that
meet the needs of their own people.
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What we have done?
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The major health
priorities are: diabetes and its complications; asthma and
respiratory conditions; addictions; heart disease; and mental
health.
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The causes of poor
health include: lifestyle factors such as change in or poor
diet, lack of exercise; and loss of traditional lifestyle;
environmental issues such as pollutants, mold and dust;
self-destructive behaviors such as excessive alcohol intake and
drug abuse.
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This information is
being used to plan services for the communities.
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168 health
workers responded to a survey about the
available health services.
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Health Canada,
the Province of Ontario and the physicians are committed to
and working with us to make this plan a success.
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We have looked
at the work of other Aboriginal communities who have come
together to provide better health services to their
communities.
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We have reached
consensus on our vision, mission, and principles for the
primary health care system.
What needs to be done
A tight
timeline lies ahead to complete the design and implementation
plan. The work includes:
- Planning what services are
provided and where.
- Identifying the team of
health care providers, what they do, where they work and how
they work together.
- Negotiating the physician
agreements to ensure access and stable funding.
- Determining how we will
govern this health system.
- Determining the financial
and human resource requirements to make the system work.
- Developing a district health
plan for the reinvestment of federal savings.
- Designing the implementation
plan.
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