Nunavummiut not treated as well as Ontariomiut

Due to a snowmobile accident during the week of December, 2003, I was medevaced all the way to Ottawa because of a serious eye injury. While at the emergency ward, I was treated very well.

Then, after the treatments and the X-rays were done, I had two or three appointments with the eye institute. Being aboriginal and from Nunavut I was usually the last person for the eye doctor to see.

Please don’t get the idea that I did not appreciate the whole treatment. Nunavut health services provided me with an escort — thank you very much!

Then I was again sent, with an escort, to the Ottawa eye institute after seven months and was examined by eye doctors for about two minutes and was told there would be an eye doctor coming up to Iqaluit on June 14, 2004, and I would be contacted for this visit.

Today, June 28, 2004, I am still waiting for some kind of an appointment for treatment for my eye injury. My right eye is still blind and prevents me from hunting.

I am sure that I am not the only one who thinks that Nunavummiut are not treated as well as Ontariomiut when it comes to getting treatment in the white man’s world.

Jake Ikeperiar
Hall Beach