Passion takes lead role in North Bay Indigenous Hub

By Kelly Anne Smith

 NORTH BAY – With the inaugural Executive Director hired at the North Bay Indigenous Hub, plans are underway to have a primary care service available soon.

Executive Director Laureen Linklater-Pizzale began February 25. With offices and examination rooms now at the interim Main Street location, Linklater-Pizzale is creating a base team of a nurse practitioner and physician.

It is projected that the North Bay Indigenous Hub (NBIH) will be fully functioning at the former Dr. MacDougall Public School site closer to the end of the year.

The NBIH partnership with Nipissing First Nation, Dokis First Nation, Temagami First Nation and the North Bay Indigenous Friendship Centre will support about 5,500 people. The primary health care team will be travelling to the First Nations as well.

Besides primary health care at the newly renovated building, there will be a daycare on the main floor for 87 children including 10 infants. EarlyON child and family services will also be offered. The children will be involved with language, traditional teachings, Elder visits and positive self-identity promotion. The former school playground has lots of potential for fun play, medicine gardening and story-telling.

In the interim office, a small bulletin board reads, “We do not heal the past by dwelling there. We heal it by living fully in the present.”

The executive director says that with the receptionist in place, awareness will begin on how to make a referral or self-refer to the service and get the support required.

Linklater-Pizzale will be increasing the primary care team closer to the grand opening with different allied staff.

“We’ll have a dietician, social workers, and mental health clinicians. We are going to have more traditional healers aboard as well. I’m currently working with Nipissing First Nation. Right now, all of the job postings will be going through their website.”

Nipissing First Nation’s Communications Officer Genevieve Couchie is working with the NBIH to develop a communications plan for public awareness, which will include social media.

Linklater-Pizzale knows people are excited.

“I’m excited for them too. It’s a matter of having enough people to support that launch. It’s like a needs assessment right now for each community,” expresses Linklater-Pizzale. “What’s going to happen in the next month? I will be visiting the three First Nations. I will be doing community engagement where I’m going to find out what their needs are from the staff and from the community themselves.”
She will create a team based on that information.

“If there are more issues around diabetes, or other medical issues, or substance abuse or they need more culturally appropriate services that involve medicines and traditional healing. Those people would be able to go over there and help out.”

The NBIH Indigenous approach will focus on hope, meaning, purpose and belonging and/or including the traditional healer role in some manner.

Linklater-Pizzale says Traditional healing is the core.

“That service is going to be very unique to a lot of primary care initiatives that are going on in the community because instead of trying to fit a mainstream service for our Indigenous people in the community, it’s the opposite. They are going to come there and receive the support that is most appropriate for them at the beginning.”

“It’s about building that trust with your patients,” adds Linklater-Pizzale. “In order for you to do that, you have to spend some time with them. We look forward to building that team that is going to be the most supportive for the community, in all sorts of capacities, traditional and western.”

The NBIH and the North Bay Indigenous Friendship Centre will refer people to each other’s appropriate programs in order to fill existing service gaps.

The North Bay Indigenous Hub will work with the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health and Long-term Care and District of Nipissing Social Services Administration Board.

Linklater-Pizzale is working on the transition from Nipissing First Nation to their own entity.

“It will be a formal board once we are incorporated as an agency. That will be within the next couple of months.”

Reflecting on her path to the executive director of the NBIH, Linklater-Pizzale said she did some soul searching.

“One of the things I noticed when I moved here 18 years ago, was there was no health access service which I was used to when I lived in Timmins. We had a place called Misiway Milopemahtesewin, a health centre. I went there for everything. When I moved here, I wondered where can I access this service. And I always said to myself, ‘I want to open one of those’. That’s so long ago.”

Linklater-Pizzale is from Moose Cree First Nation, on the west coast of James Bay. From grade two through to highschool, Linklater-Pizzale lived in Timmins. She then lived with her grandparents in Moose Factory before moving to North Bay.

“Once I saw this posting, I was very contemplative. I just lost my mother in February. The posting came out in January. She encouraged me. She said, ‘You need to go for it. You can do that’.”

Linklater-Pizzale talked of her 15 years of experience managing three mental health units at the North Bay Regional Health Centre.

“That included the regional Aboriginal Health Service. When I was there, I was so passionate about the outcomes of Indigenous people.”

She then spent almost two years with the Anishinabek Nation as the Family Well-Being Coordinator for the Social Development Department. The program centers on community-driven culture for improved outcomes for children, youth and families.

“I felt it had so much good to offer the communities. I still believe in that program. It sparked culture back into communities. People are really trying to connect with that. In such a short time, I don’t know how anything else could ignite that as much as that program.”

In her new role, Linklater-Pizzale says the NBIH will reflect reconciliation.

“I’m excited to connect people with services they haven’t had before or are having a hard time accessing. There will be opportunity to learn about our culture as well,” she expresses. “This building has a potential for educating the community about us as people, the history of our people and how we are looking to better ourselves.”

The executive director says reconciliation is important.

“We are looking at opportunities to support our community as a whole to make it healthy. Encouraging everyone to have the same understanding of where we come from, that’s how we battle racism and discrimination.”

Linklater-Pizzale insists that not only will the NBIH reduce hallway medicine at the hospital, but that it will provide the best support available for Indigenous people.

“Because we have that appropriate service now. We have that piece that was missing all this time when it should have been a foundation of our support system,” notes Linklater-Pizzale. “We have a lot of community members that are from way up north on the James Bay coast. Some of them come down here for school or for new opportunities. Some of the people, their first language is not English. Having that support system in place for the language translation to be there will ensure they get the most appropriate service and diagnosis so we can treat them in the best way possible.”