SASKATOON — Your health is not determined by a doctor or hospital, but by your lifestyle.
That’s the point behind Saskatchewan’s Provincial Health Council, says its chair, Ralph Nilson, dean of the physical education college at the University of Saskatchewan.
“The broader determinants of health” that Nilson wants to change involve people’s housing, their environment and how much money they make. He and the 60 Saskatchewanians on the council were reviewing their first year at a meeting here Oct. 4.
After 52 public meetings this spring, the council has set six goals and formed working groups to determine priorities for action.
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The council will now “have a framework … the work can’t be done in a month or a year.” The council should be a permanent fixture, he said, to make suggestions to the health minister for public policy changes.
James Irvine, a medical doctor from La Ronge, reported the major goals for the group assessing what determines health. These are: To get the public to accept a wider definition of health; to get at the root issues such as poverty, unemployment, discrimination; and to ensure government policies take more account of their effects on health.
The social justice and equity group, chaired by Garf Stevenson, a former president of Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, said its key issue is the individual’s lack of adequate income. Those who are geographically isolated or poor are not included in the processes that solve society’s problems. This leads to the third issue, which is people lack well-being because they feel they have no control over the breakdown of their spiritual values, families or communities.
There is no single right answer to the problems, is the major issue seen by the supportive families and communities group, said chair Linda Pipke, an educator from Davidson. Ideas must be shared and “tunnel vision on what healing is” must be avoided. Also, there has been an overloading of responsibilities onto people such as teachers and caregivers, who should not be expected to carry out these tasks. The third key issue for this group is that the former sense of farm and community has changed in Saskatchewan and no one is sure what has replaced it.
Dental health important issue
Tooth decay among Saskatchewan’s school children and the need to fluoridate water supplies are the main issue for the group determining a healthy physical environment, said chair Noreen Johns, a farm woman from Zelma. The second issue is the lack of information about children’s safety on the farm. Third is the lack of understanding by logging and mining companies of how their activities affect northern people.
Johns said her group deals with many conflicts such as the push for direct seeding by agriculture departments and soil conservationists. But this farming practice requires the use of chemicals and that concerns many people.
“What will the public accept?”
Regina nurse Jean Mahoney said the first priority for the health promotion group is to spread more awareness of nutrition. People eat poorly because they don’t know or use the Canada Food Guide. Good education will also help reduce accidents especially in risky jobs like farming and mining. The third issue is that many children are not learning family values or being disciplined well because their parents lack skills.
The shared responsibility group, chaired by former credit union official Eldon Anderson of Regina, said people prefer quick-fixes from doctors rather than taking the correct decisions to make us healthy. Society supports the traditional medical system of treatment rather than prevention.
