Good morning. Thanks for having me.
First, I'd like to acknowledge the Algonquin nation, whose traditional and unceded territory we are gathered upon today.
I was pretty excited to be invited to come and speak about senior care, because it is a broad issue, across the country, that we really need to deal with. More particularly, I was excited to look at it through the indigenous lens as well.
I am a registered nurse. It's wonderful to see Dr. Weeks, and hear her. Thank you for that.
I represent the First Nations Health Council, an advocacy group in British Columbia. We now fall under the First Nations Health Authority. We took over from Health Canada, which stops at the Alberta-B.C. border, and have created a community-driven, nation-based program. We are in the transformation stage around that.
Senior care is a big issue for us. We find in our communities that the majority of our elders, particularly over 50—we broke it in two different sections—end up leaving the communities, and rely on provincial services and acute care settings for their primary health care—all of their health care demands. In our communities, we only get physicians who fly in every two weeks, or once a month. The acuteness of their issues demands that they be moved to cities or towns where they are closer to access to those services. They no longer fall, per se, under Indian health or the First Nations Health Authority, and have to rely on the provincial health system. What we do federally— big-picture, umbrella-like—really impacts the indigenous community as well, through the provincial programs.
In B.C., in 2013 we assumed all of the programs and services from Health Canada, and the first nations and Inuit health branch, Pacific region. Our vision was to transform the health and well-being of B.C. first nations and aboriginal people by dramatically changing health care for the better. We have the opportunity, through the new organization, to work with surrounding provincial stakeholders. Bringing all of our data together really allows us to see what's working, or not working, and where the gaps are, which is really helpful. For quite while, we've been kind of stand-alone with Health Canada, so that makes a big difference. That relational piece among all of the stakeholders, provincially, is so important for closing those gaps. That has been a really exciting process as well.
Particularly for the analysis for today, we studied access to health care and medications, including data on chronic conditions, using the health system matrix for B.C. first nations senior women, broken out into two age categories: 50 to 64, and over 65. This was done in recognition that first nations communities themselves determine when a member has become an elder. The ages vary across B.C.
Some of the key trends we found preparing for today include a really increased reliance of first nations females aged 50 and over on accessing primary care in a hospital setting, particularly emergency departments. In 2014-15, first nations females between the ages of 50 and 64 were just over two times more likely than other resident females in B.C. to use the emergency department for basic primary care.
First nations women aged 50 to 64 have decreased access to primary care outside of hospitals. As I mentioned earlier, it depends on how we purchase services, and how isolated and remote the communities are. It's a general trend, across the board, for most communities purchasing those services, and having access to continual, consistent, adequate and safe primary health care for communities, particularly for our elders....
When we analyzed the prescription drug piece, we looked at 56,000 first nations members, through the health benefits program, particularly female clients. Some of the highlights are as follows: first nations women 50 years of age or older are significantly more likely than the general female population in B.C. to have prescriptions for hypertension—