Christine Kay
Northern News Services

Iqaluit (Oct 07/02) - Nunavummiut are dying younger than people in the rest of Canada.

That's just one of the facts in a new health report that territorial Health Minister Ed Picco says is a disgrace.

Health indicators - Between 1998 and 1999, tuberculosis rates more than doubled in Nunavut, which has a rate 17 times higher than the Canadian average. - Nunavut also has a high rate of chlamydia. There were 17 times more women and 18 times more men diagnosed with the disease in the year 2000 in Nunavut than in the whole of Canada. - 3.2 times more men and 5.3 times more women die from lung cancer in Nunavut than in the rest of the country. - Only 70.8 per cent of Nunavummiut are satisfied with the quality of health care, compared to 85 per cent nationally. - The percentage of youth who smoke daily in Nunavut is nearly three times the national average.

"It is unacceptable and an embarrassment for a territorial or provincial jurisdiction in a G8 country like Canada to have to acknowledge these shocking statistics," said Picco.

The statistics were released as part of the National Health Performance Indicators Report.

A man in Nunavut can expect to live 8.6 years less than the national average, a female, 11.5 years less.

Not only are people in Nunavut dying from poor physical health, but a disproportionate amount of people are killing themselves. The territory's suicide rate is nine-times higher than the national average.

Picco and Premier Paul Okalik say the federal government needs to provide more funding and distribute it fairly throughout the country -- not on a per capita basis.

Okalik said the federal government has reduced its share of health care funding from 50 per cent to 14 per cent over the years.

This means for every dollar spent on health care, the province or territory will pay 86 cents and the federal government will pay 14 cents.

"The focus right now is trying to get the federal government to pay its fair share," said Okalik.

One of the ways the premier believes this can happen in through public pressure. That's one reason he's part of a council called Premiers for Health.

"There is lot of work ahead of us," said Okalik. "We have very strong indicators of very depressing health statistics in this territory."

Picco estimates between 20 and 30 per cent of the health budget in Nunavut is spent on salaries and another 20 per cent of the budget is spent on transportation. This leaves the Government of Nunavut less than 60 per cent to set up new programs, purchase supplies, maintain health facilities and obtain new equipment.

People want change

Even the people in the territory know that's not enough. Nancy Amarualik is a mother of five from Hall Beach. She said getting special medical equipment into the territory may be cheaper in the long run than paying airfare all the time.

"We're going to need more and more. We're going to need lots more than what we have especially in technology," said Amarualik.

"A couple of times we lost people because it took so long to get medical attention. One of them was related to my boyfriend," she said.