Nunavut’s health still far behind Canada

SARA MINOGUE

The follow-up to a national health report launched in 2002 shows little concrete improvement in health care for Nunavummiut.

Life expectancy in the territory remains 10 years lower than the national average. Infant mortality rates are still three times higher than in the rest of Canada.

Two years ago, then Health Minister Ed Picco called these figures a “national embarrassment” and called on Ottawa for more money.

On Tuesday, Health Minister Levinia Brown said the numbers will help her department set priorities for Nunavut’s health care system.

The Nunavut Report on Comparable Health Indicators was released on Tuesday. All provinces and territories released their own versions this week.

Canada’s premiers agreed to issue the reports in 2000 as a way of accounting for federal health care money.

The document provides statistics mainly for the year 2001, and they aren’t great.

Chlamydia rates have gone up – way up.

Chlamydia is a common sexually transmitted infection. High rates often indicate that people are having unprotected sex.

The number of men with the disease rose from 1,424 to 1,799 per 100,000 men between 2001 and 2002. For women, the numbers went from 2,914 to 3,892 per 100,000 women.

That suggests an increase in risky sexual behavior, which can spread other sexually transmitted diseases.

One of those is HIV/AIDS, which has entered the territory after several years of no reported cases.

There were “less than five” cases of HIV reported in 2002 and 2003. That sounds low, but is significant change from zero reported cases for each year between 1995 and 2001.

Nunavut still has the highest rate of smokers in Canada, up to 65 per cent.

Among many potential illnesses caused by smoking, lung cancer is the one most directly related to the habit. Death from lung cancer has risen steadily since the figures were first reported in 1991.

In 1999-2001, 209.5 deaths out of 100,000 were due to lung cancer. That’s almost four times the national rate of 48.2.

The number of lung cancer deaths for women is even more striking: 335.7 out of 100,000 women die of the disease, compared to just 34.4 men.

Nunavut’s teenagers are heavy smokers, and more are taking it up. While teenage smoking rates went down four per cent in the rest of Canada, to 14.8 per cent of the population, they rose 10 per cent in Nunavut to 56 per cent of youth aged 12-19.

Geraldine Osborne, the assistant medical officer of health, says that up to 90 per cent of pregnant mothers smoke, which leads to another grim statistic.

The proportion of babies born with low birth weights is 3 per cent higher in Nunavut than elsewhere in Canada.

That figure rose from 6.9 out of every 1,000 live births in 1998-2000 to 7.6 out of every 1,000 live births in 1999-2001.

“Low birth weight is an indicator of newborn babies’ general health,” the document says. “Low birth rate babies are at a greater risk of dying during the first year of life. They are also at risk of suffering from certain disabilities, such as mental retardation, visual and respiratory problems and learning disabilities.”

The report recognizes that smoking and nutrition are factors that lead to low birth weight, but neglects to mention the role that alcohol plays.

The reason is that there are no statistics on the use of alcohol during pregnancy, Osborne said.

The report omits several other health issues, such as access to medical care and wait times. These statistics are either not compiled through Health Canada surveys or because the data is simply not available.

But the numbers for several diseases are listed.

Tuberculosis affects more people in Nunavut than elsewhere in Canada, but the rates have decreased steadily in the last three years.

Incidents of breast cancer remained low. The report suggests that the high rate of breastfeeding may be a positive factor.

But Nunavut had a rate of mortality rate of colorectal cancer in 2001 that was exponentially higher than anywhere else in Canada. There were 80.5 cases of colorectal cancer per 100,000 deaths in Nunavut. Yukon had the second highest number, with 27.8.

Colorectal cancer is treatable 90 per cent of the time if caught early. There is no screening program for colorectal cancer in Nunavut. The report recommends proper nutrition and diet.

Heart disease, stroke and diabetes rates are still low in Nunavut compared to the rest of Canada.

Nunavummiut also report that they are more physically active than many Canadians.