About - Health impacts
The health impacts
Respiratory diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are also on the rise in Indigenous communities. It is difficult to quantify, as data is sparse. We do know one of the leading causes of COPD is smoking, and smoking rates in Indigenous communities are, on average, twice as high as those of non-Indigenous Canadians. Indigenous Peoples also have a higher frequency of heart disease, ongoing tuberculosis transmission and, in many cases, limited access to critical health care resources.
Addressing disparities in Indigenous health and wellness is a monumental endeavour for our country, and it requires collaboration, innovation and commitment between communities, the public and private sectors.
One thing we're working on with the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council is increasing diabetes services to the more remote communities. So, this includes myself. So being able to visit these communities that I wouldn't regularly get to go to that are more challenging to get to.
The Nuu-chah-nulth project is a very interesting project in the sense that it brings together technology and a dietician who is within the Nuu-chah-nulth community to optimize care for the patient. The challenge within the Nuu-chah-nulth area is that you have 14 communities that span a diverse area, and the dietician has to take all sorts of transportation modes to be able to reach the different communities; from float planes to ferries. to a car and does not have the ability to spend enough time with each patient to optimize their care, to be able to understand what the patient's needs are.
What we're working on with the pilot project grant is to train more case managers like myself to be able to facilitate these remote diabetes specialty services, so including the session with the endocrinologist, from within the community.
Being on these different programs that the nutritionist and the nurse got me on, I've been doing really good. I used to have a hard time just walking, not even half a block, but now I can walk for miles.
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