Nunavut health indicators report plays down territory’s grim health stats

Iqaluit has a new hospital now to replace the former Qikiqtani General Hospital, shown here, but health indicators for Nunavut haven’t risen since its opening and Nunavut still sees a higher rate of more hospitalizations due to injury in Nunavut than in the rest of Canada. (FILE PHOTO)

You’re twice as likely to die from colorectal cancer in Nunavut than in the rest of Canada, this graph from the Nunavut report on Comparable Health Indicators 2011 shows.

A report quietly tabled Oct. 26 during the last week of the Nunavut legislature reveals the terrible state of health among Nunavut residents.

That poor state of health affects the young more than the old and has worsened over the past 10 years.

For example, if you were born in 2005 in Nunavut you can expected to live 69.8 years, while other Canadians born in 2005 will live to 80.2 years.

But if you are a Nunavut resident who turned 65 in 2005, you could expect to live 15 more years.

The 42-page Nunavut Report on Comparable Health Indicators 2011, the first produced since 2004, shows how the health of people in Nunavut compares with that of other Canadians.

In Nunavut you’re 17 times more likely to catch the sexually transmitted infection chlamydia and 18 times more likely to get another serious sexually transmitted infection, gonorrhea. Infection rates for both have skyrocketed in Nunavut over the past 10 years.

You’re also 30 times more likely to be diagnosed with a new case of tuberculosis than other Canadians living elsewhere in the country.

You’re four times more likely to develop lung cancer and then die of this cancer.

You’re twice as likely to die of colorectal cancer, which is treatable 90 per cent of the time if caught early. But there is no screening program for colorectal cancer in Nunavut.

And you’re also more likely die of a stroke, a lowering of blood supply to the brain linked to undiagnosed high blood pressure, obesity, stress, diabetes and smoking.

The report acknowledges that “in some areas, the health of Nunavummiut is not as good as other Canadians.”

But people in Nunavut don’t even realize how bad their situation is, because the report claims that more than seven in 10 say they are satisfied with their level of health care.

The report also maintains that people in Nunavut also perceive the state of their health in about the same way as other Canadians — that is, only about one in 10 feels that their state of health is poor, and seven in 10 say their mental state in “very good” or “excellent.”

More people in Nunavut also report a “sense of belonging” to their communities, says the health indicator report.

But that feeling doesn’t change the grim reality of health in Nunavut.

The report states:

• Nunavut’s infant mortality rate is about twice the rate for Canada, with most deaths occurring between the ages of 28 days and one year;

• More babies are born with low birth weights in Nunavut than in the rest of Canada;

• Life expectancy dropped from 70.4 years in 1996 to 69.8 years in 2005;

• Nearly half of people in Nunavut are overweight or obese;

• Diabetes increased by 110 per cent between 2003 and 2008;

• Hospitalizations due to injury are higher in Nunavut than in the rest of Canada — more than twice as high from 2008 to 2009; and,

• Hospitalizations for conditions that could be looked after at home are three times higher;

Interestingly the report, prepared by Dr. Isaac Sobol, the former director of public health, shifts responsibility for the high infant mortality rates, which usually reflect both medical and social factors and the “well-being of society,” away from Nunavut’s health care system.

Social factors impacting on infant mortality, it notes, include poverty, smoking in the home, overcrowded housing and poor parenting skills.

The report points to the low rate of Caesarian sections, about a third of the rate in the rest of Canada, which the report attributes to “more appropriate, as well as more efficient care.”

Because babies die after they leave the hospital, “this means that social factors, rather than the medical care system, make a significant contribution to our infant mortality rate.”

If there are any positive marks for health in Nunavut, it’s that women are receiving pap smears — a basic medical procedure that can show the presence of uterine or cervical cancer, Nunavut has fewer cases of HIV-positive blood tests and that people in Nunavut are at a slightly lesser at risk of dying from a heart attack.

The report also looks at what it calls “non-medical determinants of health,” which include smoking and heavy drinking.

• Nunavut has more than twice as many smokers over 12 years than the rest of Canada and by 19 four in 10 are smoking (although if the report had compared the number of smokers over 19 years, Nunavut would have at least three times as many smokers as in the rest of Canada);

• There’s more exposure to smoke at home and in vehicles and the workplace in Nunavut;

• A larger percentage of people in Nunavut drink heavily on a regular basis, that is, more than five drinks at a time; and,

• A proportionally greater number of people are inactive in Nunavut than in the rest of Canada.

To address some of the public health concerns raised in the Nunavut Report on Comparable Health Indicators 2011, it says Nunavut plans to develop a “health sexuality program” for Nunavut and that it has an “effective TB treatment program.”

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

This graph taken from the Nunavut report on Comparable Health Indicators 2011 shows the recent spike of tuberculosis in Nunavut.