Christine Tootoo had to spend weeks in a hotel, far from home, while she awaited the arrival of her second baby. Tootoo lives in Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, and since there isn’t a birthing centre close by, she had to fly to Winnipeg ahead of her due date earlier this year (a distance of approximately 1480 kms).
One early morning in her hotel room, her contractions came fast and irregular. By the time her partner, Rico Manitok, went to warm up the car, everything changed.
Manitok called 911 at 4:12 a.m. Two minutes later, their daughter was born on the floor of a Winnipeg hotel room.
Across many northern and remote Indigenous communities, families must leave weeks before giving birth to get the medical care they need. Some travel alone, others bring a support person, while children and extended family stay behind.
What the hell do you do, build and staff hospitals in every backwater of the second largest country in the world? How do you staff it? We’re an hour and a bit out of a city of 1M and we still have to get doctors to travel from the city to run the clinics and there’s no birthing clinic because of it.
You staff it by making it easier for the local kids who are interested to get medical training. In remote areas, they’re the most likely to come back and stay. They don’t all have to be doctors, either. Midwives help. Nursing stations help.
And then when they’re trained, they stay in the cities because that’s where the money is, and the creature comforts.
I think you would be surprised. Look at the (admittedly short, since it’s a young institution) track record of the Northern Ontario School of Medicine and where its graduates end up, for instance. Not every one of them becomes a GP serving in a rural or remote community, but a good percentage graduate with the intention of making that their career. I can’t see why similar efforts elsewhere wouldn’t work.
In terms of birth rates, FN are ahead of every other local demographic (local as in ‘Canadian’). They’re the only local demographic that’s actually growing, by quite a bit, while all the others are below sustainability. I can appreciate that this is an issue. But in terms of funding and equity, I don’t see why we, as a tax-base, should be dedicating more funding and money to a demo that’s already ‘advantaged’ in this regard.
Anyone who lives in a super remote location, is giving up various amenities that city-dwellers enjoy. And city-dwellers enjoy those amenities because there are enough people around to support those amenities / services. Rankin Inlet has a population of 2700. The largest city in Nunavut has less than 10k people, and is an equal pain in the ass to get to as Winnipeg – so she’d likely need to travel no matter what with that setup, even if there was something ‘closer’ that had additional facilities to provide care for problematic births, it’s still ‘you’re in a hotel room outside your normal community giving birth’. If you want more amenities, encourage more colonials to come north, get the populations up to support more advanced facilities/amenities, rather than dumping on them routinely, impeding development, and aiming to setup racially segregated systems. Change the conversation from “FN are so hard done by, even though they’re the only demo that’s actually growing in Canada!” to “We need more infrastructure for everyone in the northern regions of the country, we want more people to migrate north and to diversify from the 49th parallel”.
Indigenous Canadians deserve access to quality healthcare
The article sounds a bit slanted.
Not all of them necessarily have birthing clinics though.
Edit: Per my reply below, Nunavut seemingly has just one birthing clinic, located in its capital of Iqaluit. The realistic solution would be to reopen the former birthing clinic in the secondary major population center of Rankin Inlet, which would be a closer option for those who otherwise have to travel to Winnipeg.
Those in the Kitikmeot Region and northern Qikiqtaaluk Region would still have to travel far to visit the nearest birthing center, but as the particularly sparse population of those regions of Nunavut make additional centers unviable (given the difficulty in just servicing Rankin Inlet), the proposed solution of local midwife services would be viable for births without anticipated complications.
I bet that is one of the few things they all do have. Might only be mid wife level but they would be trained in birthing.
I doubt they all have surgeries. Hell I doubt some even have doctors and rely on nurses and practitioners
As of the writing of this article in 2021, Iqaluit had the only remaining clinic in Nunavut with birthing services, with expectant mothers either sent there or to Winnipeg. It also says that there used to be a clinic in Rankin Inlet, but it closed due to staffing shortages.
While the push to reintroduce midwife services at the local level could alleviate some demand for birthing clinic services, the risk of complications in some cases makes clinics a necessary alternative.
You bet wrong.
