First Nations Health Managers Association offers weekly COVID-19 virtual town halls
By Rick Garrick
OTTAWA — The First Nations Health Managers Association (FNHMA) is excited about the rollout of its weekly virtual town halls featuring information about the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on APTN. The virtual town halls, which are held on Wednesdays at the FNHMA Facebook page and other sites, have been rebroadcast on Saturdays at 5 p.m. since April 17 on APTN.
“Altogether, we have now done 40 town halls since last March (2020) primarily just sharing with various Facebook pages and the Indigenous media and radio stations and working with ihtoday.ca,” says Marion Crowe, CEO at FNHMA. “So we’re super delighted that people are tuning in to get their credible and reliable information from the First Nations Health Managers Association.”
Crowe says they decided to continue doing the virtual town halls due to the rise in cases of COVID-19 variants of concern.
“We’ve had an amazing response in terms of audience [and] in terms of people submitting questions,” Crowe says. “It’s not just our cousins and our aunties that are watching anymore, it is some non-Indigenous Canadians, so I feel like we’re actually doing a bit of education. We’re so delighted that has been one of the outcomes, [with] people having conversations now that may not have had conversations. Our format is easy to follow and we have a little laughter and fun — obviously, laughter is medicine and you will see that on the show as well.”
Crowe says the guest speakers for the Apr. 28 town hall that was scheduled to be rebroadcast on APTN on May 1 were Dr. Evan Adams, deputy chief medical officer of public health with Indigenous Services Canada, and Isabelle Wallace, a primary care nurse.
“We’ll have Dr. Adams back, he periodically pops in as the public health official for Indigenous Services Canada,” Crowe says. “And we have a front-line nurse as well on the show, Isabelle Wallace, who has been a primary care nurse working in northern and remote nations during this time so that first-hand lens from the front line. Every week we will have different guests on.”
Crowe says they are planning to have the Ornge vaccination team that delivered COVID-19 vaccinations in remote First Nations on one of the upcoming town halls to talk about their experiences.
“And hopefully we can talk a little bit about the racism that is being faced by individuals across Turtle Island in the middle of a pandemic,” Crowe says. “We’re very delighted to keep the information coming because it has been challenging at best to stay on top of the evolving science that comes through.”
Crowe says the weekly town halls are usually attended by about 200 people on the FNHMA Facebook page, plus others on their partners’ Facebook pages and radio stations.
“And now with APTN supporting, we’re really looking at tens of thousands of people,” Crowe says. “So we’re really delighted that this information is getting a wider audience.”
Crowe says all of the previous town halls are posted on the FNHMA website and the Indigenous Health Today website.
“If you want to stay up-to-date and you want to know what is happening now, then check us out,” Crowe says. “We’ll share the information, we’ll share a laugh, and we’ll make sure we have guests that are interesting and relevant to our populations.”
Crowe says questions for the guests and suggestions for potential guests are welcome and can be sent to the FNHMA inbox at: fnhma@ihtoday.ca.