Aboriginal children’s health: Leaving no child behind

Today UNICEF released the Canadian Supplement to its “The State of the World’s Children 2009” report, it says nothing that Inuit do not already know, but it does lead me to ask my fellow Canadians some very pointed questions.

• Is it acceptable in a first world country that only half of Aboriginal children will complete high school?
• Is it acceptable that twice as many Inuit children live in poverty as do other Canadian children?
• Is it acceptable that the infant mortality rate in Nunavut (one of four Inuit regions) is more than three times the national Canadian rate?
• Is it acceptable that Inuit children live in “some of the worst conditions in Canada”?
• Is it acceptable that inadequate and overcrowded housing mean that “respiratory virus and pneumonia infections are rampant”? Or that this overcrowding also leads to the transmission of diseases like tuberculosis and hepatitis A?

What, I wonder, do Canadians think about our country as they discover today when an international aid agency like UNICEF - an organization that works in third world and developing countries - has issued a report that shows that health indicators in some parts of the Inuit homeland are nearing those of a country like Sri Lanka?

I wonder if Canadians will think of this report when children come to their houses trick or treating this fall with their UNICEF boxes asking for donations to help the poor and the disadvantaged?

I also wonder if it is it actually necessary that there be an Inuit child’s face on that box before the conditions described in the report are addressed?

ITK staff members Selma Ford and Meghan McKenna are to be commended for their contribution to this report. Their creative portrayal of a young Inuit woman’s pregnancy and her child’s life in an Arctic community titled “Rosalie’s Story: Putting a face on Inuit Maternal and Child Health Issues” is a fictional narrative that follows Rosalie’s life from birth through high school graduation.

The narrative is fictional but the community realities of healthcare and health disparities, food security, education, income, housing, and language, they describe are all too real in the lives of many of today’s Inuit.

It is a story that every Canadian should read.

As Inuit, we have demonstrated an excellent track record of working with whichever government is in power to improve the living conditions of Inuit in the Arctic. We will continue to do this, and I am always willing as an Inuit leader to work positively towards this long term goal. I want to see this situation for our children improved, as I am sure my fellow Canadians do.

Here is a link to the report.

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