I should probably clarify that the First Nations Health Authority, in many cases, is not a direct medical service provider; however, we work in partnership with our regional health authorities.
We have most recently formed an internal steering committee to examine, look at and monitor the provision of MAID assessments and MAID itself in our province, although that work is just in the early stages. We have a couple of clinical nurse specialists who work for us in the office of the chief nursing officer, and they have liaised with MAID service providers to first nations people in British Columbia. That's, for example, where I have heard of several first nations people in British Columbia accessing MAID who met the eligibility criteria. The safeguards were in place, and they did receive a medically assisted death.
These are the positive examples, and, as I mentioned, of course that must be balanced with other people's hesitation and perhaps not being aware of medically assisted death in general, particularly when it comes to a mental disorder as the sole underlying medical condition coming up in terms of seeking a medically assisted death. That work really is ongoing.
I would say, from my experience on the panel, however, that one of my fellow panel members, also an indigenous physician, Dr. Sara Goulet, a MAID assessor and provider, described quite a terrific team—I can't think of a better word than “multidisciplinary”—that does not just provide MAID assessments in larger urban centres, but in fact travels to remote places to conduct MAID assessments and provision.