‘Remembering the human aspect’: Battle River Treaty 6 Health Centre fuses traditional knowledge and modern health care

Decades later, the evolution of the centre brings enhanced services to members both on and off reserve and includes home care, community health, and early learning along with mental health and addictions supports. The partnership between the province and the health centre also includes a cultural program which incorporates ancestral knowledge into a client’s care.

“It is a form of reconciliation,” Executive Director Patricia Whitecalf-Ironstand said. “I think because of what was established is what makes it unique. We are a first and second level organization so our staff come to the health agency and services are delivered. They go out to communities.”

Dr. Erin Hamilton, who was born and raised in the Battlefords and works in the centre’s clinic said the model does away with hierarchy and acknowledges each employee as part of a diversely skilled team.

“I bring a certain knowledge about physiology and pharmacology and assessments and diagnosis. That really is only a very small part of a person’s life,” she said. “Being part of a team that reflects the broad spectrum of a person’s life and can help to address other elements beyond what I can address is really powerful.”

Kent Lindgren, the director of Battleford’s Family Health Centre, echoed those sentiments adding staff members are encouraged to consider the seven grandfather teachings in their daily approach to work.

“Our community members and patients are more than that pressing health need in that moment,” he said, adding viewing the person beyond their illness can help with wellness overall.

“We take those moments and really ground our work in that,” he said.

Whitecalf-Ironstand said it’s through the efforts of non-Indigenous people that reconciliation can continue. She herself is a survivor of the Battleford Indian Hospital where she was a patient at a young age.

“We’re not the only group that has endured any kind of trauma, but it’s just coming from a place of understanding and treating everybody with respect,” she said, highlighting the need for advocacy.

“I always say now we need those hospitals for the right reasons and not for segregation so we can provide the type of health care that Indigenous people want. It’s not that we’re a special group, we just have a different way of living life and our beliefs. When you go to a place where you don’t feel that, it’s kind of hard.”

Whitecalf-Ironstand said her previous work as a nurse showed her the systemic racism first hand in the medical system.

Lindgren said by keeping discussions honest and holding people accountable in systems that could discriminate is a daily priority.

The apology from the medical association is the truth component, but reconciliation efforts continue.

“The people who have been harmed by racism in the health system may not give us a second chance, nor do we necessarily deserve all the chances,” Hamilton said. “By being part of an Indigenous-led organization where we can build trust and provide care in a different way or see who’s not making it in to the clinic as we’ve set up.”

[We’re] “really listening and looking for who’s not making it in and look at some different ways that we can ensure that they have access in a way that’s maybe more acceptable and accessible to them.”

The team says incorporating cultural traditions has improved accessibility for clients. Some patients may opt to have health care in their home. Others benefit from cultural workers assisting during Hamilton’s check-ups. Pregnant mothers can incorporate honoured traditions in their birth plans. It’s health care tailored to the person instead of a one size fits all approach.

It’s “just remembering the human aspect of providing health care. And remembering who your consumers are. To not have health care be so cookie cutter for everybody,” Whitecalf-Ironstand said.

A generic approach to duplicating this agency elsewhere in the province wouldn’t work, the team says. Decades of trust and respect between governments and First Nations leading to this centre is the bedrock of its success, the team says. It’s attributed to the initial vision and agreements the chiefs made half a century ago.

That relationship has changed over those years, Lindgren said. “It isn’t so paternalistic anymore. It has changed — is it perfect? No. But some of that has changed and Indigenous nations have shown [they] could do it better than anybody or just as well as anyone else when presented with those opportunities and often resources.”

“We still have a lot to do. There’s better partnerships. Sometimes there’s maybe an infinite amount of work we see our community members need and how we get there. It’s a big hill that we are happy to climb,” Kent noted.

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glynn.brothen@pattisonmedia.com

by Glynn Brothen

‘Remembering the human aspect’: Battle River Treaty 6 Health Centre fuses traditional knowledge and modern health care

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