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The housing crisis in Canada’s northernmost territory,
Nunavut, has been blamed for a range of social problems from poor school
performance to family violence. Now a new study points to it as the
cause of the highest rate of hospital admissions in the world for infants
with respiratory infections.
“Rates of admissions to hospital for babies with
bronchiolitis and pneumonia are 40 times higher for Inuit babies than
they are in southern Canada,” said Dr. Thomas Kovesi, a respirologist
with the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario.
That rate reaches up to 306 per 1,000 babies, says his
study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
“Inadequate home ventilation and overcrowding
contributes to the high rate of lower respiratory tract infection
observed among Inuit children,” it concludes.
The study’s statistics, compiled in the Baffin region
communities of Pond Inlet, Cape Dorset, Igloolik and Clyde River, are
stark. It found 80 per cent of homes have substandard
ventilation. Tobacco smoke was “nearly universal.” Occupancy
stood at 6.1 residents per home. Most homes are smaller than 1,000
square feet (93 square metres), while the Canadian average is 2.39
residents per home.
In crowded quarters viruses circulate and babies often
get seriously ill. About 40 per cent of infected infants get sick
enough to be airlifted to Iqaluit, the territorial capital. Of
those, 10 per cent must be flown south for treatment, creating a trauma
of separation for infants and mothers. Many of the sick face
lifelong lung problems.
Private sector housing is exorbitantly expensive, so
most Inuit rely on social housing. Over 1,000 families are on
waiting lists. With Canada’s youngest population and highest birth
rate, Nunavut would have to build 273 units a year just to keep pace –
much more than the 70 or so the Nunavut Housing Corp. averaged between
2000 and 2006. It would cost $1.9 billion over 10 years to reach
‘national standards’.
But how does that compare to the $3.4 billion the
Harper federal Conservative government pledged to spend on new military
patrol ships to police Canada’s Arctic northwest passage (not to mention
about $4.3 billion for operations and maintenance over their 25-year
lifespan), or the vast fortune being spent by wealthy resource
corporations developing diamond mines or oil and gas extraction in the
far north?
It’s just a matter of priorities.
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