CACN Member Spotlight
Arviat is located 1,200 km north of Winnipeg and has a population of approximately 3,500 people. The Arviat clinic is organized through Ongomiizwin Health Services at the University of Manitoba. Travel from Arviat to Winnipeg takes all day and includes a layover in Rankin Inlet. This is an extremely long journey for young children and their parents, particularly as only one family member is allowed to accompany them. As a result, for a single 30-minute follow-up appointment, a family may need to be away from home for three days.
The Thompson clinic is arranged through the Northern Regional Health Authority in Manitoba. Thompson is located 761 km north of Winnipeg, approximately an eight- to nine-hour drive. Thompson is also the hub for northern Manitoba, serving 21 communities, almost all of which are First Nations communities. Some patients have to drive or take a bus to Winnipeg for their medical appointments.
I fly twice a year to Arviat and three times a year to Thompson to run clinics for a week, seeing approximately 30 patients each week.
This has significantly improved patients' care and lives. For many reasons, travel to Winnipeg is not always feasible, including challenges faced by single parents, weather delays, and other circumstances. Patients are now able to access more regular follow-up with less interference in their daily lives.
Many families have expressed their appreciation for having me visit them locally so they do not have to travel so far. It also saves the health care system money to pay for one physician to travel for five days rather than sending 20 patients to Winnipeg with their caregivers. I have also been able to get to know the health centre staff and coordinate care in ways that are not possible when patients are far from home. Examples include being able to bring a patient directly to a public health nurse if they are missing immunizations, review their entire primary care chart, have health centre staff send a family a Facebook message to encourage them to attend an appointment they missed, and track down results or communications that do not always reach the health centre fax machines.
Many nurses have requested teaching on various neurology topics, including headaches and seizure medications. I have assisted with urgent assessments and interventions for patients presenting to Emergency and have been able to visit the schools to better understand the local dynamics and culture. Future plans include going into the schools to provide education regarding epilepsy, as it is very common in this community, and expanding the clinic to Rankin Inlet.
In 2024, I published an article demonstrating that Inuit children have a larger head circumference than WHO references (view the published article). In 2025, this was included in the updated Nunavut Well Child Guidelines (view the guidelines, Appendix D). This work was completed in collaboration with Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., the Government of Nunavut, and the Qaujigiartiit Health Research Centre.
