Nunavut slated for $32M in health money: Aglukkaq

Cambridge Bay’s mental health facility stands to benefit from the new money for mental health services. The health department plans to give its 22 workers permanent jobs. (FILE PHOTO)

The federal government will give Nunavut more than $32 million over three years for mental wellness, chronic disease, children’s oral health and to reduce reliance on out-of-territory health systems, Nunavut MP Leona Aglukkaq announced March 18.

“Our government is committed to working with Nunavummiut in the delivery of community-based, culturally-relevant programs that promote good physical and mental health, and a healthy start in life,” Aglukkaq said.

The money is part of a three-year, $70-million fund announced in the 2014 federal budget, an extension of a longstanding federal spending measure aimed at compensating the three territories for the relatively low per-capita-based amounts they receive each year through the annual federal health transfer.

The money will be spent in the following ways over the next three years:

• $3 million to support mental health services, by developing a” high quality” mental health services and human resource capacity within the mental health workforce;

• $6.9 million for the Nunavut Oral Health Pilot Project to provide services and treatments to the remaining 22 communities in Nunavut. The money will also help pay for more dentists, dental therapists, dental hygienists, and local community oral health coordinators;

• $3. million to reduce chronic disease and improve standards of nutrition in the North and to increase the number of clinical dieticians and the implementation of territorial standards for food services in facilities;

• $17 million to offset the continued cost burden associated with medical travel; and,

• $6 million to a mental health pan-territorial project “E-Mental Health and Other Innovative Strategies for the Delivery of Mental Health Services in Remote Northern Communities.”

Nunavut’s share of this mental health project is $2.6 million and will focus on supporting therapeutic services for youth with depression, creation of an online service database for mental health services available in the four official languages of Nunavut, and population modeling to support mental health service planning, the news release on the funding announcement said.

“Building mental health service capacity is also a key commitment of the Nunavut Suicide Prevention Strategy. In Sivumut Abluqta, the Government of Nunavut committed to addressing mental health and addictions for healthy families and strong communities,” Nunavut’s health minister Paul Okalik, said in the same March 18 news release.