Diabetes Awareness Month reveals 1 in 3 are affected
Officials with the Misiway Community Health Centre in Timmins indicated over 17 per cent of Canada's Indigenous people who live on-reserve have diabetes and close to 13 per cent who live off-reserve do.
“So there is a big link to you know residential schooling systems, colonization and the high prevalence of diabetes in the indigenous communities," said Christie Lackie, a registered nurse and certified diabetes educator with the centre.
In an effort to help its clients, Misiway has a team in place to offer a Diabetes Education Program. It includes Lackie and a registered dietician. They said the addition of a pharmacist to the team, makes it unique.
“He can provide medication reviews for clients, he can do a lot of education for different medications as well. If people have questions or hesitancies or if we want to change things up," added Lackie.
With November being Diabetes Awareness Month, officials with Diabetes Canada said one in three people live with the disease.
Last month, a Framework for Diabetes in Canada was launched and those involved are calling on governments to fund and implement it.
“By having a framework, a collective roadmap-so if you’re in Manitoba, or if you’re in PEI-what are we doing to think about the best practices that this framework starts to lay out," said Laura Syron, president and chief executive officer for Diabetes Canada.
And she is asking health care workers to share their best practices with other provinces.
"It also allows us to start as a country, collecting data about diabetes because certainly what gets measured gets done," added Syron.
Hillary Debye, the dietician at Misiway Community Health Centre said one of its best practices is to offer culturally-focused services.
“For some that means integrating foraged foods or hunted foods, country foods into our cooking classes," said Debye.
"We like to use things like moose meat, bear meat. We’ve used fiddleheads, blueberries, saskatoon berries as a way to connect people back with their culture, to connect back to the land.”
Diabetes Canada reported nearly twelve million people are affected and the number of cases is predicted to increase by 27 per cent within the next decade. It said it costs the health care system $50 million dollars a day to treat people.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
What's a Barnacle? It's yellow, sticks and screams if you try to pry it off your car
Barnacles, bright yellow devices used to make sure parking scofflaws pay their tickets, could soon be making their way to cities across Canada.
Verdun Airbnb listing taken down amid complaints, fines and frustration from neighbours
An Airbnb in Montreal's Verdun borough was the source of much frustration from neighbours who say there were constant parties at the location. It has been taken down from the app, but housing advocates remain upset about short-term rentals.
Man who set himself on fire outside Trump trial dies of injuries, police say
A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former U.S. President Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said.
They were from different countries and barely spoke each other's languages. More than 20 years later, they're still happily in love
He decided to spend Christmas somewhere that wouldn't involve snowstorm disasters. She was spending the holidays with family, travelling for the first time outside of her native country of Venezuela. 23 years later, they're still in love.
Young people 'tortured' if stolen vehicle operations fail, Montreal police tell MPs
One day after a Montreal police officer fired gunshots at a suspect in a stolen vehicle, senior officers were telling parliamentarians that organized crime groups are recruiting people as young as 15 in the city to steal cars so that they can be shipped overseas.
A Nigerian chess champion plays the royal game for 60 hours - a new global chess record
A Nigerian chess champion and child education advocate played chess nonstop for 60 hours in New York City's Times Square to break the Guinness World Record for the longest chess marathon.
Fire in Labrador town under control, officials tells residents to stay away
RCMP say the fire that prompted a state of emergency in a Labrador town is now under control.
12 students and teacher killed in Columbine school shooting remembered at 25th anniversary vigil
Thirteen victims of the Columbine High School shooting were remembered during a vigil Friday on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the shooting that was the worst the nation had seen at the time.
Israeli airstrike in southern Gaza city of Rafah kills at least 9 Palestinians, including 6 children
An Israeli airstrike on a house in Gaza's southernmost city of Rafah killed at least nine people, six of them children, hospital authorities said Saturday, as Israel pursued its nearly seven-month offensive in the besieged Palestinian territory.