How Indigenous communities are working to boost COVID-19 vaccine rates
CBC
Alana Kennedy knows the toll COVID-19 takes.
The virus spread through her family a few months ago. Kennedy, her mom, her dad and her niece all got sick.
"We were all isolating together at my parents' place and I was scared. We were all scared," she said.
Her mother is still in the hospital in Saskatoon.
"My mom getting sick really crumbled my world, because she's a rock in our family. She is the one that we go to for guidance," Kennedy said. "She is our mom, and mom is our number one priority in our family,"
Kennedy and her family are vaccinated, and she wants others to do the same.
But in Saskatchewan — the province with the lowest vaccination rate in Canada — some Indigenous communities, along with some southern farming communities, have among the lowest COVID-19 vaccine uptake.
First Nation communities in Northern Saskatchewan are fighting an uphill battle against the virus, with case rates twice as high as the rest of the province.
And where Kennedy lives, in Little Pine First Nation in central Saskatchewan, only 35 per cent of residents have received at least one dose of vaccine — well below the provincial average.
Some Indigenous health-care providers are trying to change that, acknowledging the history of colonialism and trauma that may be leading to vaccine mistrust in the first place.
Dr. James Makokis, an Indigenous family physician from Saddle Lake First Nation, Alta., said vaccine mistrust in Indigenous communities has its roots in colonization and residential schools.
"They have a profound mistrust of the medical system because of things that have been imposed on them for decades to over 100 years," he said.
"What's really important to differentiate [is that] Indigenous peoples who are mistrusting of the health system because of systemic racism, oppression and genocide are a very different population than those that are protesting outside of hospitals for their perceived infringement on their individual human rights."
Makokis said Indigenous health-care workers are best positioned to help increase vaccination rates.
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