Healthcare support line launched for Indigenous residents

By Al Beeber - Lethbridge Herald on May 2, 2023.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com

A support line has been launched to help Indigenous residents in southern Alberta on their healthcare journey.

The toll-free Indigenous Support Line, 1-844-944-4744, is staffed by Indigenous Health Link staff who will assist callers in getting culturally appropriate care and support while assisting in navigating the provincial healthcare system.

The line is available from noon until 8 p.m. on weekdays.

The line is modelled after one launched in June of 2022 in the North Zone. Since its launch there, staff have fielded more than 2,000 calls. A follow-up survey showed all respondents felts respected and supported by the person giving them assistance and 97 per cent said they would use the line again and recommend it.

The North Zone line was created with assistance from the AHS wisdom council and elder circle which provided guidance and advice to the health service.

Dr. Esther Tailfeathers, Senior Team Lead with the Indigenous Wellness Core, said in a Monday Zoom meeting that “what we’re seeing is an expanding need for primary care and other services across the province. South Zone has a very large Indigenous population” with two First Nations and a growing population in Lethbridge.

Lethbridge, she pointed out, is down many physicians so “it’s really hard for patients to get the care that they need because they’re not able to get through the bottleneck of accessibility to primary care.”

There are so many new services that have been offered such as mental health and addictions that people aren’t aware of “so it’s really nice to have this 1-844 line so that people can call the line and have some navigation as to where they can go,” said Dr. Tailfeathers.

“We think that it’s a really good idea. We see that it’s working really well in terms of trust and access to services. I think that this has been really helpful for the North Zone and launching it in the South Zone is going to show us how necessary it is for Indigenous people to be able to reach out for a service to help them navigate and find the place they need to go in a trusting environment.”

Tailfeathers said there are expectations of the same level of calls here than in the North.

“We’ll wait to see. We don’t know exactly what the outcome is going to be. We know that there’s a lot of need. So we’ll take a look at what the call measurement is and hopefully we’ll able to scale up or scale down in relationship to the number of calls that we’re getting,” added the doctor.

Shantelle Malley, a listener with the support line, said “we do all sorts of stuff. We help with navigating the healthcare system but sometimes it extends to far more than that. It’s being a support and an advocate, sometimes just what exactly what my title is – just a listener to listen to our people and what they need.

“It’s a whole range. We never want to say ‘no’ to a caller, we do our best to support them in every way that we can and in any difficulties that they’re having in the healthcare system. And if we can, with other systems as well,” said Malley.

Malley said a lot calls regard cultural support in hospitals, housing after being discharged from hospital and discharge planning.

“There is a lack of trust in many of the systems for our Indigenous people and I think it just comes down to having somebody there who is part of the system, or in the system, to microphone their voice. Not my voice, my callers’ voice. I’m the megaphone so that they can be heard,” added Malley.

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