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“Senior bureaucrats tasked with providing health care to Canada’s First Nations children say they have had trouble spending new money aimed at closing care gaps because the system is “broken” and there is a lack of capacity on the ground in Indigenous communities.
More than a year ago, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruled that the federally run First Nations health-care system is discriminatory and demanded the government provide services to Indigenous kids at the same level as those provided by the provinces to children living off-reserve.
But as CBC News first reported Wednesday, Health Canada has spent only a quarter of the $127 million budgeted this year to implement Jordan’s Principle, a federal policy that stipulates no Indigenous child should suffer denials, delays or disruptions of health services due to jurisdictional disputes.
(Unlike other children, health services for First Nations living on reserve are funded almost exclusively by the federal government.)
On Jan. 11, eight months after the new money was allocated, Health Canada filed documents with the tribunal to say it had spent only $11.5 million of the funds — or 10 per cent — helping just 1,500 First Nations kids get care.
But new numbers released Wednesday show spending has more than doubled in the past month and the government has now “identified” 3,000 children who require treatment at a cost of $30-40 million — a marked increase in a short period of time.”
– CBC News, Health Canada having trouble finding First Nations kids to help because of ‘broken’ system.
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Indian Country 52
Indian Country 52 is a weekly project by David Bernie that uses the medium of posters that promote issues and stories in Indian Country.
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This work by David Bernie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may download, share, and post the images under the condition that the works are attributed to the artist.
