Merasty Backs AFN’s “Getting Results Agenda”
Friday, December 12, 2003 at 15:56
A total of nine chiefs from bands within the Prince Albert Grand Council have returned from a conference of the Assembly of First Nations held in Ottawa this week.
PAGC Chief Gary Merasty says while he wasn’t in attendance, he has a good idea of what was discussed and he supports AFN Chief Phil Fontaine’s “Getting Results Agenda” that was dicussed at the meeting.
Merasty explains the campaign is designed to address a lack of services at the grassroots level, and several examples are evident in the field of health care.
For instance, he says he’s never heard of a First Nations woman being diagnosed with post-partum depression, yet non-Aboriginal woman are diagnosed with it all the time.
Merasty says the discrepancy is a direct result of a lack of mental health services at the band level.
He says this example, in many ways, is what the Getting Results campaign is all about — achieving comparable services on an essential level rather than merely a financial one.