Full Circle: Innovation in Healthcare or a Return to Our Roots?

In an age of digital breakthroughs and technology in healthcare, our small grassroots Indigenous lead group is breaking down barriers and improving patient experiences and health outcomes by returning to old ways. 

In the western world there is a focus on moving forward through innovative new ideas, new technologies, and a constant forward motion. Seeing through a two eyed approach, as many Indigenous people do, means that real progress can be made by slowing down, reconnecting, and remembering how things were done pre-colonization. 

Our elders tell us stories about the old ways of being and living. Our people lived and flourished in communities where everyone had their role. Whether you were a medicine keeper, healer, auntie, or midwife - across generations, these community roles offered wisdom, wellness, continuity, and culturally grounded care. When community members went to ceremony, harvesting medicines and berries, or sharing meals, the people in helping roles were alongside them. This meant that communities felt held and supported not only through big life transitions and illness, but also in the mundane day to day tasks, and through raising the next generation.

At Ihkapaskwa Collective, we believe in relational care. It’s less about credentials and more about relationships. We created a space in modern healthcare for traditional roles like Auntie Support Workers. These Aunties are there to help individuals and families through life transitions. Whether they need resource navigation, help with safety planning, or learning about traditional ways of parenting, Auntie Support Workers are restoring relational, land-based, and holistic care. We’ve learned that sometimes the best care doesn't come from “systems” but from someone who knows you. 

The beauty of being a grassroots group of healthcare providers and support workers is that we don’t have to fit into the mold of our current healthcare system. We have the opportunity to blend the old with the new. We listen to our elders and knowledge keepers, and honour tradition rather than replacing it. We braid together modern training with ancestral knowledge, clinical care with community trust. 

Ihkapaskwa Collective has one Indigenous Registered Midwife for a large and diverse community. The group supports communities from across the RMWB, which spans a geographical range of 500km. With only one Registered Midwife, the group needs to be innovative with how they provide their care to ensure that optimum impact is obtained with the minimal time and resources available. One of the ways we’ve done this is through relationship building. We utilize other healthcare workers in roles that make sense. An example of this is how we employ a Registered Nurse to assist our Registered Midwife. The nurse does occasional pre and postnatal clinic coverage for the Registered Midwife when she is sick or otherwise unavailable due to births or planned travel, and acts as a second attendant at out of hospital births. Lisa is a RN with years of experience building relationships with Indigenous people from across the region. She has worked in a variety of nursing roles and therefore understands the complexities of living and working in rural and remote communities. For the majority of her career, she has worked on the Maternal Child Unit at our community’s hospital. She currently holds a part time position there as well. This was a well thought out decision by Ihkapaskwa Collective. Not only does she have existing trusting relationships built with Indigenous people in the region, but she also holds valuable knowledge and experience within the hospital system. When clients see her in clinic, they are offered the opportunity to expand on the relationships already formed, and help shape the future relationships and experiences those clients will have when exposed to the hospital system. There is a good chance that anyone planning admission to the hospital will encounter her while there, which helps foster continuity, leads to increased cultural safety and trust during their admission. Because of lack of midwives, clients may spend more time in hospital without their midwife present. For many patients, this can lead to anxiety, fear of judgement, and lack of certainty on how they will be perceived or judged. Having a familiar face, and someone in which they trust at the hospital when they are seeking healthcare leads to more people accessing the care they need, people taking their concerns and experiences seriously, and better medical and psychologic outcomes. 

Her presence helps re-create the sense of community care our ancestors knew—where healing happened not in isolation, but with familiar faces beside you, grounded in trust and shared experience.

Innovation isn’t always about newness. Sometimes it’s about returning, intentionally, to ways that worked. The future of healthcare might look a lot like the past… just with wifi.