Creating a safe space for Indigenous peoples to get the COVID-19 vaccine in Regina

An effort is underway in Regina to ensure that urban Indigenous peoples have equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines when it’s their turn.

Erica Beaudin, the executive director of Regina Treaty Status Indian Services, says it’s important to ensure elders, knowledge keepers and older First Nations, Métis and Inuit members of the community get the opportunity.

“If you look at the social determinants of health, it doesn’t matter if an Indigenous person lives on reserve or off reserve,” Beaudin said. “There are vulnerabilities in terms of health, in terms of standard of living, being part of the community — and perhaps being marginalized within the larger setting.”

Regina Treaty Status Indian Services has been working with the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) to facilitate the the urban rollout in Regina, where about 13 per cent of the population is Indigenous.

For about a month now, nurses at The Gathering Place have been administering about 150 to 200 COVID-19 vaccines per day. Some people find out about it through the organization’s staff and volunteers, others have learned about it through word of mouth.

Regardless of how people end up at the immunization hub on 3rd Avenue N, Beaudin said the uptake has been steady and not a single dose has been wasted.

COVID-19 has been proven to hit vulnerable populations and the elderly harder.

“Every time one of our older people passes away, we’re losing a library, a wealth of knowledge — not only with the cultures, but also with in the family history and family identity,” Beaudin said.

Getting the shot in a familiar and culturally safe space has been a difference-maker for some people, like Jeanne Haywahe, who has lived in the city for three years and is a member of Cowessess First Nation.

“It made it easier to come here,” she told Global News Friday, after getting a dose of AstraZeneca.

“It was good.  It was easy. It didn’t hurt.”

Haywahe said she’s looking forward to more people getting vaccinated and expanding her social circle

“Right now, I see my grandchildren at a distance and we wave,” she said. “I just want to hold my grandbabies and do things with them like we used to.”