Good morning to you, honourable committee members.
I am Dr. Denis Vincent, President of the Réseau santé albertain. Allow me to introduce to you Donald Michaud, the educational sector representative on our board of directors. He is the Executive Director of the Conseil scolaire Centre-Est. I also want to introduce Luc Therrien, Director General of the Réseau santé albertain.
Our network is one of the 17 networks created in 2003, as part of the nationwide networking initiative for French-language health care. We thank you for giving us the opportunity to make this presentation.
First of all, let us consider the achievements we have made over the past two years, thanks to financial support by Health Canada. Our network was established to integrate the initiatives that contribute to the health of our community within the provincial health system. We are starting to break the isolation among our francophone communities that are scattered throughout the province. We facilitate exchanges and partnerships between those communities. We help individuals and communities to take charge of their health.
We have just completed the “Setting the Stage” project, a copy of which was handed out to you. This report is entitled “French-Language Primary Health Care in Alberta: Everyone's Business”. It is basically our action plan for the next five years. We have just completed our website. People can use it to search for a wide variety of French-speaking health care professionals. There are close to 1,000 of them, as well as 400 French language health resources.
On our site's virtual centres, you can find information about community achievements that contribute to the health and wellness of Franco-Albertans. Thanks to the website, the network is becoming an information hub where people can find out about health care issues in our province.
A new agreement was signed with Health Canada in early November. With these funds, we will organize, among other things in March 2007, three forums to promote health care in Calgary, Cold Lake and Grande Prairie. The objectives of these forums are to: raise awareness among participants about the needs of francophones with regard to health promotion; inform them of the mandate of the Réseau santé albertain; improve participants' knowledge of health promotion issues; and promote the individual and collective commitment of Franco-Albertans to health promotion projects. As we prepare for those forums, we are also sensitizing a large number of anglophone health organizations. That bodes well for the future.
Let us now talk about our challenges. One of the major challenges is to strengthen the ties with the regional health authorities. There are nine of them in Alberta, and therefore nine doors to knock on. There is at least one regional health authority that refuses to get involved. One of the reasons that is given is the fear of reprisals from the community in the event that the funding dries up. On-going, and stable funding from the federal government would address that concern.
Another concern is that if a regional health authority improves primary health care services in French, then other ethno-cultural communities would also demand that their services be improved. We have to convince people that it not only makes sense to provide services that meet language and cultural requirements, it is also profitable to do so. Health care in French costs less.
We would eventually like to have a language clause in health care funding arrangements, so that minority official language communities can receive adequate health care services. We account for approximately 2% of the population. If we received 2% of all federal health care funds that are transferred to Alberta, we could noticeably improve the health of francophones.
Another major challenge is to operate as an effective community development agency, despite the complicated management mechanisms that are required under the department's funding programs. We understand that we have to follow the rules regarding the administration of public funds, but our team is too small, the project application process too complex and the assessment framework too cumbersome. We spend more time filling out paperwork than working on the ground.
As well, funding is allocated irregularly throughout the year. That causes stress that is often hard to bear. We would like to see some adjustments in the way things are done to lessen the administrative workload. That would allow us to do the work that is expected of us.
That is a brief overview of our role within the Franco-Albertan community as well as our achievements, current activities and challenges. Knowing that you have no doubt met with other networks similar to ours, we have tried to avoid repeating the themes and messages you have already received and understood.
We again invite you to read our report and to get a better understanding of our community and the issues we face.
We are now ready to answer your questions. We sincerely thank you for having given us this unique opportunity.