By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

building relationships

Drum and Sash program helping Métis find their way with communicable diseases

Sep 20, 2019 | 4:34 PM

An Alberta-based research project is connecting Métis people to better testing for communicable diseases like syphilis, Hepatitis C and HIV.

Drum and Sash is a five-year initiative led by the Canadian Aboriginal AIDS Network (CAAN), and in Red Deer is being conducted with Shining Mountains Living Community. Various First Nations, as well as the University of Victoria are also involved.

Renee Masching, CAAN’s Director of Research and Policy, says the people this project is aimed at should know, first and foremost, that their health matters.

“We’re working very hard to support access to healthcare and a positive experience within the healthcare system,” she says. “Testing is the first step in beginning to build a relationship with healthcare, and the dry blood spot testing is a low-barrier way to begin to understand and identify concerns.”

The dry blood spot test is simpler than drawing blood, and can be done by anyone willing to learn how, she notes.

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“Stigma and racism create an inherent barrier,” Masching points out. “Sometimes people don’t go until they have to and when we’re talking about Hepatitis C or HIV, the point where your immune system is so compromised where you have to go to the doctor is sometimes too late for intervention, or certainly too late to have the restoration of your health that would’ve been possible had you been able to engage earlier.”

Shining Mountains’ executive director, Raye St. Denis, says she personally had one such negative experience in November 2018 when she attended the ER while dressed in regalia.

“My blood pressure and heart rate were up, and it was very obvious I was an Aboriginal person. I had never experienced the level of disdain from an emergency intake person as I did that night,” she says. “It’s not the first time I went there, but it was the first time in regalia. It was the tone of voice, the attitude and the dismissal.”

St. Denis says these types of instances, as well as other factors, contribute to that lack of Métis representation in healthcare policy-making.

“If we feel willing or able to self-identify as a Métis person, we often go into the Aboriginal stat, and if we didn’t self-identify or no one asked us, they stick us into the Caucasian stat. I’ve talked with nurses and asked what would happen if we could identify Métis people out of the Caucasian stats, and their belief is that for both Hepatitis C and HIV, as well as other bloodborne illnesses, the Aboriginal stats would almost double.”

Considering how much likelier Métis and other Aboriginal people are to contract one of these illnesses, she adds, it’s even more crucial to sound the alarm now on getting services they need and have a right to expect.

“Those services are funded based on stats,” she says. “I’m not First Nations, I’m not Caucasian, but I am like that bridge; I link two nations. I have a grandson and granddaughter, and I don’t want them having to fight this battle in 10 or 15 years.”

As for clients who are interested in the dry blood spot test, she says they can rest assured Shining Mountains is a place they can receive it safely and confidentially.

“You’ll have time to think about what your results might be and build a plan because it’s just as important for us and for our clients if they get a negative with the blood test, because we then say ‘Okay, what are the changes you want to make, are you protected, are their risks you’re taking?’ If so, are their ways to minimize them and how can we help do that?”

Shining Mountains Living Community Services is located at 4925 46 Street. They can be contacted by calling 403-346-9794.