Urban Indigenous health centre coming to Halifax

A new health care centre is opening in Halifax on Friday to help promote urban Indigenous wellness.

The innovative approach to health care delivery aims to help bridge gaps in health care for Indigenous people in the region, while specializing in the complex health needs of the urban Indigenous population.

Known as the Wije’winen Health Centre, the service’s development was supported by the National Association of Friendship Centres and the Dalhousie Faculty of Medicine.

The team will offer medical expertise informed by language, ceremonial and cultural needs.

The centre will be led by Dr. Brent Young, the academic director for Indigenous Health and Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at Dalhousie University. Young is no stranger to the Mi’kmaw Native Friendship Centre, working with the organization’s Urban Indigenous Wellness Initiative.

“We know this is a small step toward providing care in the midst of an acute shortage of access, MNFC executive director Pam Glode Desrochers wrote in a statement, noting that there is a growing need to address potential co-morbidities in the urban Indigenous population. “However, the Indigenous community is also growing at one of the fastest rates of the overall population, so we see this as an incremental and critical step.”

The centre will offer medical services that are, according to Glode Desrochers, “informed by language, ceremonial and cultural needs.”

In the same statement, Young detailed the intersecting socio-economic challenges that Indigenous people in Canada face, ranging from access to training and employment to housing and food security.

“These elements have significant impacts on a person’s well-being, add to this the conscious or unconscious biases Indigenous people face in health care settings and it becomes a perfect storm of building barriers to care,” Young said. “The Wije’winen Health Centre is the first of many steps in the direction of breaking down those barriers and providing essential access for Indigenous people living in Kjipuktuk.”

Dr. Kath Stringer, the head of the Dalhousie Department of Family Medicine, agrees.

“[We are] committed to strengthening our ties with Indigenous communities and learning how to support education regarding the health and social issues facing Indigenous peoples,” she said. “This clinic will provide a wonderful opportunity for us to learn together.”

The centre is located on Brunswick Street at the temporary Mi’kmaw Native Friendship Centre location. It’s unclear whether the health centre will move to the MNFC’s new location, which was announced last month after the organization received $4 million from the federal government to develop a new facility on Gottingen Street.

“It's a gap that's been here for many years, and something we need to fill in an urgent manner because we know the urban Indigenous population in Halifax is growing and those health needs need to be met,” Young said, noting that he expects to provide care to between 800 to 1,000 urban Indigenous peoples once the centre is up and running.

Prospective clients can book an appointment online, beginning Friday.