I feel like I don't want to talk about that. Statistics and data show we've been the sickest people in the country for generations. So really that's kind of repeating that message and that story. It's about what we do and how we go about tackling that and changing that through the transformation of those systems that provide those services for us.
One of the biggest things we talked about and that came out of going through the data was mental health and wellness. We could only collect the data through the physicians service lens—their visits, hospitalizations for mental health and substance use. But when we talk a little bit to our nurses.... We have access to some of the nurses in our communities, and this was profound for me. I actually talked to my mom. She was a nurse too. She is 74 now and my dad is 68. So, we're talking about my parents when we talk about this issue. They are the seniors in the community today. They are the first survivors of the residential school. That is really ground zero of the whole mental health trauma-informed piece that we hear about. The approach and the delivery of service have to ensure that we get to those people at a level where they are going to be able to respond to that and live the healthiest life they possibly can. Mainstream systems are not working for our indigenous people with the lack of trauma-informed care. I think this intersection is a really great opportunity for the TRC recommendations that have been rolling out and for the health system to really get on board and jump on that train and work through it and for our seniors. It triggered for me that, as I begin to look at losing my parents as they move through their lifespan, that that really was the first flow-through of residential school survivors, and that's huge.
Some of the recommendations we came up with through the data points highlight, of course, the need for more access to better quality of health services, particularly primary care.
Increased attachment to general practitioners can facilitate better access to tertiary care and other important services for improving health and wellness for first nations senior women. The following provides a summary of recommendations through these shared resources and the stakeholders we talked to in B.C. before arriving here today.
One is to improve home and community care programs to accommodate clients discharged from hospital, many of whom require continuing care at home. My mom is a prime example. She has had bilateral hip replacements and ended up losing the apparatus completely. She is wheelchair-bound and requires a lot of home care. We had to move her out of the village. She is now off reserve and doesn't have access to or does not qualify for Indian health services anymore. She is a little too far from the health authority for provincial services to come in, so she gets limited access to those services. There really has to be a collaboration between the federal and provincial services to actually capture these individuals when they come out of those kinds of acute-care settings. Our labs and X-rays end at three o'clock when the technician leaves and jumps on the ferry and goes away. So we have to put them in an ambulance and drive them two hours and a ferry ride away. Quite often the procedure is done, the test is done, and they are discharged and left at the door. These are 72-year-old people who don't have an escort, don't have a wallet and are in a hospital gown. That type of thing happens on a regular basis in our communities.
Next is to increase population health promotion and programming at individual, community and population levels to reduce rates of chronic conditions among first nations. At the first nations health authority level, we are really tackling that at a community-driven nation base level, but it really has to be reflected in the provincial level as well, and we have to find ways to collaborate on that because the majority of our people are off reserve and outside of those programs.
Improving primary health care access for first nations is absolutely vital. We also have to prioritize mental health and wellness including substance use and needs.
The biggest thing for me is to increase cultural safety and humility within the health system through adequate training, through constant revisiting. It's a culture that I personally have been a big part of and it's like running into a brick wall every day. We have to tackle it together, because it's going to directly impact the health status of indigenous people regardless of whether they live on reserve or off reserve.
I think that's it.