In the legislative assembly Friday, Health Minister John Main said a new suicide-prevention strategy is in the planning stages. (Screenshot courtesy of the Nunavut legislative assembly)
MLA questions acupuncture, driving lessons as suicide-prevention tools
Health minister says ‘a lot of different things’ are being done to address suicide rates but more is needed
Citing what she called an “unchecked” increase in the numbers of suicides in Nunavut, Tununiq MLA Karen Nutarak questioned Health Minister John Main over the effectiveness of some prevention programs in the legislative assembly Friday.
She told her colleagues that her community of Pond Inlet is mourning two recent deaths by suicide.
Nutarak asked Main, who is also the minister responsible for suicide prevention, how the government is evaluating programs and other tools designed to lower the suicide rate across the territory.
“I have seen posts advertising various activities to address suicide prevention including acupuncture, driving lessons and babysitting classes,” she said.
Main said the Health Department is streamlining the application process for community-based organizations to seek funding for suicide-prevention programs.
He said there is an evaluation “of sorts” of these programs, which he said are basically a judgment of whether the activities are worthwhile.
“I completely agree in terms of how serious this is,” said Main.
“We are doing a lot of different things. But is it enough? Do we need to do more? Yes, I think so.”
Main said the Health Department tries to balance the needs of the community with accountability for the programs.
“The Department of Health also wants to keep in mind that evaluation is good, but getting the money out to the community level where activities can happen is also important,” he said.
The Nunavut Government’s suicide prevention strategy, which was an action plan covering the years 2017 to 2022, was evaluated 2022, Main said. Results are still being reviewed.
He said it took a “high-level approach,” while a new strategy that’s currently in the planning stages will follow a more “targeted approach.”
The Embrace Life website includes a list of community and regional contacts for people in distress who need to talk with someone.
Good question actually.
Driving is a good life skill.
Acupuncture is not cultually appropriate but fun experimental. Do they really save lives? Engaging thoughts to life matters might be better way to go. Like how about getting young people to to make summer shacks for old peole. It could be meaningful for the young and the old..
I find this heuristic about the “culturally appropriate” very strange. Maybe I am unclear about what you are getting at by it.
Let’s say I took my Inuk partner or friend for sushi. Would also say that was culturally inappropriate? Or, maybe we got together and played monopoly, as a fun activity. Would you say it then?
Should there be some kind of social prohibition against engaging in activities that are not culturally ‘Inuit,’ by Inuit? Or, likewise, offering them to Inuit?
Your comment appears to reflect a kind of purism. If true, i’m unsure if that is necessary or helpful.
I don’t think that this is what is meant by “culturally appropriate”–not in the sense of fitting with cultural norms or values, but of being culturally compatible or relevant.
There is something to be said about looking into the culture and finding traditional ways to addressing mental health or well-being issues. Bernard Saladin d’Anglure, for example, suggested that exploring modern applications of angakkuniq, or shamanism, could be beneficial.
Your point about getting sushi is telling: we are in a post-community modern culture of consumerism: I buy, therefore I am. However, feeding the soul is a little more complex than feeding the stomach. The capacities ones has to feel better are more than organs–they’re a culturally-defined knowledge and awareness–an epistemology–that is intergenerational and cultural: language, values, common reference points, emotional skills, etc.
So, the question is not prohibition, but relevance. As much as I would value “exotic” means of addressing mental health in Nunavut, we do indeed have a responsibility to keep people alive and the culture. They go hand in hand.
So, I would place acupuncture further down on the list; and higher up, truly Nunavummiut activities that connect people–not just Inuit, but Qallunaat, too, who suffer from not understanding the tundra and living here–with the land, with the seasons, with the people, with animals, with here: hunting, berry picking, traditional singing, iglu building, dog sledding, string games, and so forth. What people need the most is connection.
More than anything, I would love to see the Department of Health work with hamlet governments get their act together and organise events, groups or continuous activities of this nature, or support community leaders that would.
Your use of ‘epistemology’ is interesting. Does the term ‘other ways of knowing’ roll off your lips from time to time? Epistemology is a field of study concerned with how we can distinguish what is true from what is not. There is no such thing as knowledge that is true only in relation to, or contingent on ones culture.
If you want to narrow the discussion to things that help one get better, would you say that the use of insulin to treat diabetes is culturally inappropriate? Or, penicillin to treat an infection? Also inappropriate? Maybe vaccines for influenza? That must be inappropriate too…
You live inside a narrow bubble if you think the only suitable treatments are ones that originate within the culture of a patient.
Bernard Saladin d’Anglure has an interesting opinion. But in the end, magic is not real. Granted, it’s psychological effects, much like placebo, can be. Which is really to say psychological knowledge is where it’s at.
I find Minister Main’s question not only the most significant but also the most timely and accountability focused question about suicide prevention in NU ever asked in the Ledge. Indeed, are the funds being spent being spent effectively? Are the interventions evidence-based? Do they stand a chance of becoming evidence-based? Is there a monitoring and evaluation framework in place? What guidelines is the committee approving these expenditures following? This reminds me of Iqaluit Mental Health hosting a feast during Mental Health week which is nice, but is that the mandate of IMH? Or is their mandate to provide services they are mandated to provide and that other government agencies are not? Energies spent putting on a feast are better utilised actively recruiting and retaining therapists. Anyone can put on a feast, not everyone can counsel. The GN must be vigilant to not slide further down the incline of low expectations. That incline is the incline of the racism of low expectations.
I understand why the MLA from Pond Inlet would ask these questions, but I’m not sure we need to be so critical of deciding what activities prevent suicide or not. Training that empowers people or wellness activities that make someone feel better are great. What really is a prevention program anyway when it comes to these kinds of community endeavours? As the Minister stated, it’s all kind of subjective when it comes to anything government funded but community-led.