The Canadian Healthcare System

In this day and age, the Canadian healthcare system is characterized by a fast-paced industrial pursuit to distribute treatments, often in the form of pharmaceuticals, that focus on the individual’s ailment rather than the person as a whole. Consequently, our healthcare system is at an all time low. Patients, the major stakeholders in all of this, are losing trust in the very system supposedly dedicated to saving them. “This year’s wait time—the longest ever recorded in this survey’s history—is 115% longer than in 1993, when it was just 9.3 weeks…It is estimated that, across the 10 provinces, the total number of procedures for which people are waiting in 2016 is 973,505.” (Barua and Ren 2016). Evident from this, one of the biggest issues our

“Research has demonstrated that culture and ethnicity are important to individual and community health because they influence an individual’s interaction with the health care system, their acceptance of and participation in preventative health programs and services, their lifestyle choices, and their access to health information.” (NAHO, 2008). Thus, by involving the patient in the many decision-making processes, reaching out to them as an individual, and recognizing their ethnic and cultural needs, the healthcare system creates a platform for trust. In the long run this may not only benefit the individual, as they spread a message promoting the services they received. Finally, Locality Development rests on the idea that people can and want to work together and when they do, certain tangible advantages can occur. At an industrial level the Canadian Healthcare system has prioritized professional salary increase, and authority over systematic change, specific patient needs and involvement. By utilizing a new approach both in the clinic and the boardroom, government officials, patients and medical professionals may all directly benefit. These benefits include a reduction in individuals feeling worthless, dependant, alienated, apathy, cynicism, and

In order to integrate different ways of knowing, it is most important to allow those in possession of the knowledge the time and respect they deserve. Locality development indicates we should inspire, guide, persuade, and teach. However, it is also important to recognize that this information must be taken willingly as using the locality model, community developers don’t force change but provide the tools for change. Thus, the community developer will teach and what is accepted will be what is changed. Therefore, to ensure change is more readily accepted, community developers must make change look advantageous to the community. Currently, the industry is capitalizing on the misappropriation of traditional knowledge.” (Turi, 2016). “When you take it [naturally occurring resource], out of traditional context, you don’t know its full effects.” (Turi, 2016). Many medicines are now manufactured in laboratories and factory settings. Thus, it would be important to put forward the risks associated with these chemically developed drugs and highlight the advantages indigenous medicine brings to out health. Through this, the advantages of indigenous values are put forth and it is more likely change will be accepted and