Thank you for inviting the National Aboriginal Health Organization here this morning to speak to you. I am here on behalf of Paulette Tremblay, who was unable to come.
I am Ojibway and am a member of the Curve Lake First Nation. As director of the First Nations Centre, I'm responsible for ensuring that we do high quality research that meets the needs of the communities. In fact, tomorrow I'm going to do a health career fair on reserve to speak to students to try to encourage them to enter health careers. That's an issue for us.
We have a young population. As you know from the statistics, half the Inuit population is 22 years and younger, half the first nations population is 25 years and younger, and half the Métis population is 30 years and younger. This compares to a Canadian population that has a median age of 40.
We have a lot of issues in terms of health human resources that need to be addressed to try to correct the health disparities between aboriginal people in Canada and mainstream Canadians. The lack of first nations people in the health care workforce is an issue. Other issues are the recruitment and retention of first nations health care professionals; the need for self-determination in the management of health human resources; and the recognition of the legitimacy of traditional health human resources in the health care system, such as traditional healers, midwives, and elders.
In 2007, NAHO completed a comprehensive survey of the aboriginal health human resource landscape in Canada. We found that there is a general lack of data to identify first nations people in the health care labour force. Where we do have data, we find that the number of first nations people in health care is not nearly equal to the ratio in the population. For example, in Saskatchewan, only 3.7% of health care workers identify as aboriginal, but that population represents 8.5% of the employed population, according to Statistics Canada. The data is limited, but where we have it, we know that there's a disproportionate number of first nations health care professionals.
A possible solution would be to improve access to training possibilities for first nations people who wish to enter health care professions. This may sound simple, but there are barriers to access for first nations that are unique. First, the entrance requirements can be difficult to meet. This is because the completion rate for high school is much lower than it is for the rest of Canadians. For those who do graduate from high school, participation in hard sciences is low. These subjects are necessary to get into the health care professions. More focus on math and science in elementary schools is needed.
It should be noted that per capita funding for first nations students is less than two-thirds of what it is for other Canadian students. In 2008 Jean Charest stated in Le Devoir that spending on the education for first nations children comes to less than half the amount spent on the education of children in non-aboriginal communities.
To encourage first nations people to pursue health careers, it is necessary to invest in early education.
For those who do enter medical training, there is a high dropout rate. Even those who have graduated report that they had to overcome barriers to stay the course. According to the 2006 census, only 240 people who identified as first nations had graduated in medicine, veterinary medicine, or dentistry.
Admission to medical training can be daunting. But paying for it can be even more of a barrier. Because first nations students experience high levels of poverty, funding is an enormous problem, especially when first nations people tend to drop out of high school and then return to higher education as mature students with children. They do not come from wealthy, influential families with a history of medical practitioners and the resources to help them. If they qualify to receive educational assistance from their first nations, the allowance is not enough to live on, so they have to work or get family assistance. Access to student loans is limited for these students if they receive educational assistance from their first nations.
The need for self-determination in the management of health human resources is a critical element in addressing the inequities that exist for first nations people. Clearly, a coordinated effort between first nations governments and health care professional groups will lead to improvements. Research has found that control is a necessary precondition to improvement.
Finally, it's important for first nations that the health care system formally acknowledge the value and legitimacy of traditional health care human resources. The benefits of traditional knowledge and practitioners have been undervalued and maligned by western medicine. It must be remembered that in the not too distant past some of these practices were illegal.
Cultural safety is an ongoing issue, and mainstream health professionals are slowly starting to acknowledge the important contributions of traditional healers, midwives, and elders. It would be advisable to expand the initiatives of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the First Nations and Inuit Health Branch to examine the benefits of traditional medicines and cultural practices in health care.
The First Nations Centre supports single parents in health careers with a bursary program. Last year the number of applicants was over 80, but we only had the budget to award five grants. The number of applicants underscores the need to support first nations people wanting to have a career in health.
Now I'd like to speak a bit about the issues that were identified by the Inuit.
Health human resources is a high priority for Inuit. Currently, most health care staff working in Inuit--