Alberta has 8 Métis settlements. None of them have full-time doctors
CBC
Every Wednesday, a registered nurse travels 39 kilometres from the northeastern Alberta city of Cold Lake to see patients on the Elizabeth Métis Settlement.
Alberta Health Services rents an office inside the settlement's community hall for appointments.
A counter near the door has a sink and a small weigh scale for babies, with a mobile hanging above it. On the other side of the room there's a desk, a refrigerator for medicine and a bed for patients.
About three years ago the local registered nurse stopped working full-time in the community when she was hired for another position in Cold Lake.
"Nobody has filled that spot," said Kathy Lepine, chair of the Elizabeth Métis Settlement council. "We kept posting it and posting it."
Alberta Health Services says it is still recruiting a full-time registered nurse to serve the community of 640 people but hasn't found one yet. The nurse who previously worked at the settlement full-time now works there once a week. Another nurse covers weekly home-care visits in the community.
The challenges facing Lepine and the Elizabeth Métis Settlement are not unique in Alberta. Many smaller communities are struggling to find adequate health care, due primarily to shortages of available doctors, nurses and other health-care providers.
Northern Alberta is home to eight self-governing Métis settlements with a combined population of 5,600 people; they are the only Métis communities in Canada with land-base agreements.
Canada has a patchwork system for delivering Indigenous health-care. Unlike many First Nations communities, where Indigenous Services Canada can provide federal funding to support health-care programs, health care for residents of Alberta's Métis settlements falls exclusively under provincial jurisdiction.
"Métis settlements are Indigenous communities: living, breathing communities with infrastructure, health needs, water, youth programming, senior services," said Lee Thom, a councillor for Kikino Métis Settlement, 185 km northeast of Edmonton.
"We're stuck in a place where we're not a municipality, but we're not yet considered an Indigenous — for lack of a better word — federal community," Thom said.
"So we've always been advocating for better services and there's been some good steps made with the province now."
For the first time in decades, there are now plans to have a doctor visit the Kikino Métis Settlement and two other settlements with a mobile clinic.
The move is among several recent commitments by the province to increase health-care resources within settlements.
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