Inuit women will not birth alone
Feds fund an escort for 'every woman who has to leave her community to give birth'
Beth Brown
Northern News Services
Monday, April 24, 2017
NUNAVUT
Pregnant Inuit and First Nations women will no longer need to travel alone when leaving their communities to give birth.
Olesie Alookie, right, with her son Simo, left, and daughter Mary-Leah. First Nations and Inuit women travelling away from their communities to give birth will now be provided funding for an escort so they need not bear children alone. - NNSL file photo
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Non-medical escorts for indigenous prenatal clients are being funded through new Health Canada dollars in the federal budget - meaning women in Nunavut can bring their partner or a family member for support when birthing in a larger health centre.
Around 500 women in the territory require prenatal travel each year.
To date, escort support was only provided for complex cases when medically required by a physician. For instance, for a Caesarean section, prenatal clients were given escort support at the time of delivery to help them return home, stated Ron Wassink, spokesperson for Nunavut's Department of Health.
But the lead up to surgery, known as confinement, would be spent alone.
"Some (women) have to leave five weeks before the baby is due and stay for a number of weeks afterwards," said federal Health Minister Jane Philpott during an April 6 committee meeting. "Some of these women are teenagers who have to leave their community and give birth in a faraway city."
She noted the straining situation can have lifelong implications for mother and child.
"This is not a healthy policy. Now every woman who has to leave her community to give birth is able to bring an escort with her."
The 2017 budget proposes $828.2 million over a five-year period toward improving First Nations and Inuit health.
Prenatal escorts are funded under Health Canada's Non-Insured Health Benefits Program (NIHB), which provides indigenous peoples with funding for medically necessary services that do not fall under standard insurance plans. The program is to receive $305 million over those five years.
Based on past coverage of prenatal transportation, the new demand-driven prenatal escort program is expected to cost $22 million for the 2017-18 fiscal year, stated Health Canada spokesperson Maryse Durette.
While Health Canada and the GN are still ironing out details and best practices for administering NIHB funding as a whole, support for prenatal escorts has taken immediate effect.
"In the interim, expectant mothers who are eligible for NIHB benefits can access benefit coverage for non-medical escorts if they require medical transportation outside their community to deliver their babies," stated Durette.
"The benefit covers airfare, accommodations, meals and ground transportation, as per the NIHB medical travel framework for the non-medical escort."
Families covered by the Non-Insured Heath Benefits program are not required to pay up front costs for travel. Costs incurred will be reimbursed.
Regular centres of travel include birthing centres in Cambridge Bay and Rankin Inlet and hospitals in Iqaluit, Yellowknife, Winnipeg and Ottawa.
Staff at Kitikmeot Larga, a health residence in Yellowknife, say they have seen a number of escorts come with recent prenatal guests. The centre harbours around ten prenatal women each month.
The 2017-18 federal budget states health outcomes for First Nations and Inuit lag behind the nation's broader population. It also notes indigenous women are systemically more vulnerable than non-indigenous Canadians.
"Indigenous women are more likely to be single mothers, they are more likely to have a low income, they are significantly over-represented in the corrections system, and they are more likely to be the victims of violence," stated a section of the federal budget with the subhead Supporting Indigenous Women.
Minister Philpott said the department is looking to create more ways for women to stay within their communities, including through the expansion of midwifery programs.
She said escort funding is an attempt to, quoting a First Nations leader, "restore the cries of birth,"
and, also "to allow people to give birth in their homes, in their land."
