Around Town: CNF to raise $1 million to recruit more indigenous nurses

Efforts are underway to raise $1 million to help train and educate more aboriginal people in the field of nursing, the Canadian Nurses Foundation announced at its annual Nightingale Gala held at the Shaw Centre on Thursday night.

The one-year campaign is in addition to the academic scholarships that have already been awarded over the past six years to 100 nurses, through the foundation’s TD Aboriginal Nursing Fund.

The recent Truth and Reconciliation Commission highlighted the need for a commitment to improving the health and education of indigenous people. With this in mind, the foundation believes its campaign will help lead to better health and well-being for indigenous communities.

“The stories we’re getting from these indigenous nurses and the differences they’re making are that they are going back to their communities and they are so accepted,” Christine Rieck Buckley, CEO of the Canadian Nurses Foundation, told Around Town.

“Their elders understand them. They have the cultural knowledge and the language. So, there isn’t this divide. Also, they’re bringing hope and inspiration to the youth in the communities because they are stories of success.”

Nurses are particularly vital, she added, because “they’re 24/7. They’re often the first point of contact and the only point of contact in remote communities.”

The sold-out gala drew a crowd of 500, including the prime minister’s wife, Sophie Grégoire-Trudeau, as honourary patron. Trudeau, whose mother is a former nurse, praised the profession for its ability to bring a sense of security to those patients marked by suffering and vulnerability. “To be surrounded by someone who gives you that feeling of safety is a gift,” Trudeau said in her brief remarks.

From left, honourary patron Sophie Gr´`goire-Trudeau with Christine Rieck Buckley, CEO of the Canadian Nurses Foundation, at the CNF’s annual Nightingale Gala held at the Shaw Centre on Thursday, May 5, 2016.

The benefit dinner, emceed by CBC journalist Waubgeshig Rice, drew leading nurses, chief executives from local hospitals, corporate sponsors and such influential gala patrons as Wanda Brascoupé Peters from The Circle on Philanthropy and Aboriginal Peoples in Canada, Allison Fisher from the Wabano Centre for Aboriginal Health, and multi-scholarship award-recipient Lisa Bourque Bearskin, president of the Aboriginal Nurses Association of Canada.

From left, VON Canada vice president Beth Green and its president and CEO, Jo-Anne Poirier, with Wabano Centre for Aboriginal Health executive director Allison Fisher and Sylvie Lajoie, also from Wabano, at the Canadian Nurses Foundation’s annual Nightingale Gala, held at the Shaw Centre on Thursday, May 5, 2016.

The evening included silent and live auctions and a raffle for a pair of plane tickets to any Air Canada destination.

Carolyn001@sympatico.ca