The purpose of the Maternal Child Health Initiative is to:
• improve maternal health services for First Nation women and to bring birthing of their babies “closer to home and back into the hands of women.” This initiative will have several components
• increase vision, early hearing and dental screening for First Nations children
• develop universal child supports
• reviewing of Child Death Review Unit’s reports
NEW- Aboriginal Children and Youth with Complex Health Care Needs- Aboriginal Parents and Health Workers Preparatory Session Summary Report | pdf download |
On October 8 and 9, 2009 the First Nations Health Council (FNHC), Child Health BC and the Vancouver Island Health Authority (VIHA) convened 2 meetings with the First Nations communities on Vancouver Island, health care providers, and health agencies to examine how to develop a discharge planning program for Aboriginal Children with Complex Health Needs living on Vancouver Island. The meetings focused on how such a program could work with the Nanaimo General Hospital’s new Child and Youth Ambulatory unit to improve the current discharge planning process, take advantage of the growing availability of to specialized services closer to the child’s home environment, and coordinate more effectively with family and community realities.
This summary seeks to describe the outcomes from each of those 2 consecutive meetings in the nature of a preliminary framework that can support the ongoing effort to develop an improved Child Health BC discharge planning demonstration project.
Aboriginal Maternal and Child Health Committee.
The FNHC has assembled a community based Aboriginal Maternal and Child Health Committee, the committee’s responsibilities are:
• Implementing recommendations from the TFNHP
• Conducting environment scans
• Setting priority areas
• Making recommendations for policy and process changes
• Identifying jurisdictional overlaps or gaps in service delivery
• Sharing “best” or “better” practices
• Determining resources required to implement initiative(s)/program(s) such as: planning, human resources, research, technological requirements
• Identifying, building and maintaining effective community partnerships and innovative practices
TCA: First Nations Health Plan Action Items:
• Aboriginal children under age six (on and off-reserve) will receive hearing, dental and vision screening.
• First Nations and the province will follow-up on the British Columbia Coroners Service Child Death Review Report (2005) recommendation that “all levels of government, educators, parents, and Aboriginal leaders and their communities forge new relationships led by the Aboriginal people to address the results of this report that clearly illustrate that Aboriginal children are dying at disproportionately higher rates.”
• A Maternity Access Project will be implemented to improve maternal health services for Aboriginal women and bring birth “closer to home and back into the hands of women.” This will help reduce the need for First Nations women in rural and remote communities to travel to more urban centres up to two months prior to delivery because of a lack of maternity care in their home communities. The project will have several components including diversity training for care providers, training of birth companions and Aboriginal midwives, and the creation of a community guide and toolkit. The investment in this program will in the long-term be offset by a decrease in costs associated with medical evacuations and transfers, and a reduction in emergency care costs.