Categories: Capital Read, Inside the Queensway

Garden River First Nations Wellness Centre: The feel good H1N1 preparedness story of the year!

by kadyomalley on Tuesday, September 8, 2009 5:26pm - 16 Comments

And ITQ isn’t just saying that because the article quotes her liveblog, even; these women deserve every bit of praise that they’re getting, and the people of Garden River First Nation are lucky to have them in their community:

The Garden River First Nations Wellness Centre has received top praise from Health Canada, leading national health officials, and the all party House of Commons Standing Committee on Health for its proactive pandemic flu plan.

Pam Nolan, manager of health and social services, and Maxine Lesage, a registered nurse and supervisor of health services at the Garden River Wellness Centre were invited to speak at the health symposium on Parliament Hill on Aug. 28.

Kady O’Malley, a blogger with Macleans Magazine, wrote that Nolan had given “the best opening statement of the day, as far as community preparedness goes.”

O’Malley said that the Garden River First Nations had put together “one heck of a plan. [Nolan] got a round of applause for her presentation…and the chair described herself as ‘blown away’”.

O’Malley quoted Nolan as saying, “We were fortunate. We went for it. Other communities did not and aren’t ready.”

Both Nolan and Lesage later told Sault This Week that they began planning for potential pandemics in January 2005 after receiving a template from Health Canada following the SARS outbreak.

They declined to take personal credit, however, for the plan’s development. Both stressed that the preparedness plan had evolved from a team effort involving all of their front line health workers in the First Nations community.

They also gave credit to Chief Lyle Sayers and the Council who supported them from the beginning. “We have a very supportive chief who let us just go for it, so we were able to produce the resources that we needed,” Nolan said. “And we were fortunate enough that Health Canada saw what we produced, liked it, and we were reimbursed for some of our activities.”

Read the whole article here.

Tags: extra credit where credit sorely overdue, garden river first nation, h1n1 preparedness

More by kadyomalley

http://intensedebate.com/people/Wascally_Wabbit Wascally_Wabbit

And I can vouch for that – since I'm doing consulting work for a group of First Nations communities including Garden River – who are moving to implement an eHealth infrastructure right across a large group of First Nations communities up here in the North East of Ontario

http://intensedebate.com/people/Stewart_Smith Stewart_Smith

Wascally, Does the seasonal flu season starts a little later in relatively isolated communities?

Justin

Garden River is hardly "relatively isolated". It's right outside of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario (which has a population of 75,000)

http://intensedebate.com/people/Wascally_Wabbit Wascally_Wabbit

I don't know the exact answer to your question Stewart – because most of these communities are not "isolated"..
Garden River is just a few minutes outside of Sault St. Marie – and in fact Pam Nolan – at a presentation of hers I attended in March – told her audience (from memory) that at least 1/3 of her patients live off reserve in the Sault or suburbs.
The communities in question lie along the North Shore of Lake Huron – or actually on Manitoulin Island – but the population may work in the Sault – Sudbury – Espanola…so the issue is more of vulnerability – at least here.
http://intensedebate.com/people/Stewart_Smith Stewart_Smith

(sorry misread North East for North West, of course even there the world is getting to be a small place.)
Second question:
long preamble:
The government is currently talking about being able to speed up the approval process.
http://www.canada.com/health/H1N1+guidelines+heal…
Presumably this speed up is not just working overtime on some paperwork, I assume it means that approval would be given with less than the intended number of trial results. As a result, they will only shorten the regulation process if the early prognosis of the H1N1 flu season is particularly bad. Presumably first nations communities would be among the first in line.

Has there been any discussion about the ethics of a slightly early release of the vaccine to endangered populations? On one hand it looks a bit like using a disadvantage population as guinnea pigs, however the reward to risk ratio of vaccination is probably highest for populations at risk.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Wascally_Wabbit Wascally_Wabbit

Not that close to the pointy end Stewart – so would be inappropiate to comment – I just don't know about that part. Not sure whether it will come up in the conference I'm attending next week either…

Gawd

lets ust outlaw swine products it smells revolting when it cooks and just aes a grease puddle. besides, have you seen how they live? the stench alone is enough to choke on they marinade in their own excrement and slop

http://intensedebate.com/people/Wascally_Wabbit Wascally_Wabbit

Dear Gawd – I once did a study for the Red Meat farming industry (Beef, Pork and Lamb).
THEY live – at least the ones in the pig farms I visited – extremely well – the farmers don't want to increase any risk of disease in what are close quarters.
As to their "latrines" no better no worse than ours I guess!

CAPS

Way to go Kady!

Just what was “the best opening statement of the day, as far as community preparedness goes.” Are you able to link back to your liveblog of it?
http://intensedebate.com/people/madeyoulook madeyoulook

So Health Canada distributes a pandemic preparedness template that local communities should use to properly prepare, taking into account local circumstances and needs.

And, it seems, only one local community bothered to do so. So much so, that they must be singled out for the remarkable performance of, of, of… of doing their jobs.

Obvious Conclusion-Meme: Health Canada bureaucrats are racist for worrying about how many aboriginals might be poisoned by the ready availability of alcohol-based hand cleansing dispensers. Yeesh.

http://intensedebate.com/people/cmtejunkie cmtejunkie

MYL

It astounds me how quickly those who know nothing about this issue are so quick to judge…because of one report (in a local paper) on Garden River. there are many communities across Canada who have completed plans (I happen to be a member of one of them).

What this posting has to do about Health Canada bureaucrats is beyond my comprehension.

why can't people just celebrate a good news story instead of making generalizations that bring us back to a negative spin on this issue.

http://intensedebate.com/people/madeyoulook madeyoulook

Happy to hear that more communities have people who can think and plan. But that, you must allow, has by no means been the prevailing message coming out of the news lately. Indeed, Garden River has been held up as some sort of virtuous anomaly. Which is bizarre.

jarrid

OT but I wouldn't OT if it wasn't important, and this is, at least to some people.

New Nanos poll out folks:

Conservatives at 37.5 percent of committed voters

Liberals at 33.4 percent.

(A month earlier it had the Liberals ahead by 2.5 points.)

NDP at 14.8 percent

Bloc at 9.7 percent

Greens at 4.6 percent.

The Liberals have slided and the Conservatives have moved up a lot.

http://intensedebate.com/people/KadyITQ KadyITQ

I'm actually going to be posting that poll in a few minutes, but next time, can you please put new poll results in the most recent poll-related thread? I'd really appreciate it.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Stewart_Smith Stewart_Smith

Perhaps jarrid was subtly pointing out that the country is facing two dire situations: one pandemic, one polldemic.