November 15, 2006
Public Relations Staff
Alaska Native healthcare was a front-and-center topic at this year’s Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN) convention in Anchorage last month as South Central Foundation CEO Katherine Gottlieb presented the keynote address Thursday, Oct. 26.
The theme of this year’s convention, which brought thousands of Natives to Anchorage from all over the state, was “ Shaping Our Future: Safety - Security - Self Sufficiency.”
Focusing on self-sufficiency, Gottlieb reminded delegates that Alaska Natives have built a whole new health care system in Alaska out of the Indian Health Service bureaucracy over the past 12 years. With the establishment of the Alaska Tribal Health Compact and the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium to administer it, Alaska’s Native healthcare system has been transformed by the people it serves.
While much remains to be done, Gottlieb said, “We can’t count on the government. We have to dive in and do it ourselves.” Having lived through “many catastrophes” as a people, she said—earthquakes, volcanoes, tuberculosis and flu epidemics— “we must have done something right.” Pointing to subsistence as a defining value of Native life, she said, “We are a self-determining people.” Success is possible if that self-determination is applied to the health threats facing many communities: alcholism, drugs, diabetes, obesity, cancer. Taking responsibility is the key. “It boils down to individuals making healthy choices,” she said.
Val Davidson of the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC) echoed the self-reliance theme later in the day as a panalist on a forum on Urgent Issues and Innovative Solutions. Davidson demonstrated the effectiveness ofn one person starting something big when she invited one delegate to start a “wave” across the whole convention floor. Adding a few Eskimo dance moves to the “wave” turned it into a culturally relevant mass movement.
Davidson and ANTHC have been in the forefront of establishing the Dental Health Aide Therapy program in Alaska villages, which promises a success for midlevel dentistry that is already prevalent in medicine with Physician Assistants and Nurse Practitioners. Davidson announced that soon there will be a new training program within the state of Alaska to train Dental Health Aide Therapists who have previously had to travel to New Zealand for comprehensive training.
“There is no other program like this in the United States,” Davidson said, “Alaska is FIRST.”