Thank you. I certainly look forward to the day where I could see what the deputy minister is saying in terms of improved health care services in the communities.
In the description here it talks about recruitment and retention programs specifically related to health and social service professionals. I want to ask, in terms of the recruitment of the aboriginal wellness workers, aboriginal health care providers such as the community health representatives, you know, people in the communities that have been working in this field but they’re not recognized; some of the elders that we use or we go to for various reasons that could be deemed health issues or social services issues that recruitment of relying on our own people and not always relying on the outside. There are specific times when we need a medical doctor to come in, but there’s also recognition of the aboriginal medical, if you could call it that, wellness model, so that we can utilize the traditional knowledge of the elders in our communities.
I think, Mr. Chair, that the Minister, prior to this chapter, did make some mention of the Foundation for Change. I’ve been looking at this. So that’s what I wish to see. That’s my vision, that our own people could be at the health centres or they can be going into the different houses in the communities to talk about prevention, to talk about the use of the traditional medicines from the land, medicine they have from the animals, medicine that could be used. People have a choice in terms of their well-being and the prevention of diabetes, prevention of heart disease, prevention of a lot of other things that we haven’t yet given prudence to the aboriginal view on how we can work on this. A lot of it we rely on the model of the western concept of illness, and that is something that’s good for some reasons but not for everything. So I hope, through the recruitment and on the whole health and social services, that this here looks at a balanced view of how health could be looked at in our communities and regions. Those are more comments to the department here and that’s my wish, I guess, to see
how this program should be, could be, and hope to be implemented in this department. Mahsi.