The sign on the front of the building reads: Manitoulin Health Centre. The sign on the door of the office of Marilyn Lewis reads: Diabetes Education Clinic.
Diabetes, while knowing no human prejudice, has been particularly devastating for many aboriginal communities. Lewis' work at the The Diabetes Clinic is part of a larger effort to bridge the gap between traditional native healing methods and the clinical care of Western medicine.
The two forms of health care, which Lewis refers to as "complementary", have been officially in use in hospitals on Manitoulin Island since the mid-1990s, when the Mekwaatawgsajig Council was formed.
The Council is made up of eight representatives from each of the First Nation communities in the Manitoulin area. Their mission statement reads:
"In the healing path of the Anishnabe, we the Anishnabe Mekwaatawgsajig bring and share the Anishnabe culture through a working partnership with the Manitoulin Health Centre for the holistic healing and wellness of our people."
In short, the Council has worked to make traditional healing a complementary part of health care as it is practiced in the hospitals in Mindemoya and Little Current.
Dr. Jack Bailey, a retired physician from Little Current has been co-ordinator of the Council since its inception in 1995. He has long worked as a sort of unofficial liaison between the First Nations and the hospital and is a strong believer in the complementary powers of traditional and clinical medicine.
At the beginning of the project Bailey quickly learned that the success of the Council would hinge largely on the degree of independence it was granted.
The Council was originally conceived as an "Advisory Committee" but there was very little interest shown from the First Nations. When Bailey approached the communities a second time, offering on this occasion full independence, the response was different. Each chief named an appointment for the Council.
Bailey says there are a number of ways in which the Council has helped to integrate traditional and clinical medicine. The first is as a simple communication channel for "facilitating" dialogue between the First Nations and the hospital administration.
A second function of the Council is to assist in the education of hospital staff in the culture of traditional healing. While it is rare for patient-care staff to administer traditional medicine (it is most often done by a family member), it is important for them to be aware of the significance of various healing ceremonies.
"We try to have four presentations per year," Bailey says. "For example we've had presentations on the smudging ceremony and why it's important to Native people."
Bailey says smudging, which involves the burning of sweetgrass, is "usually asked for when a family member is critically ill."
Before the Council was formed "it used to happen occasionally in the hospital, but it was awkward because the staff didn't know what it was all about," Bailey says. "They didn't know how to behave and although most of the time they would try to keep out of the way, the family didn't feel very comfortable with it."
The problems associated with such a ceremony included such details as the smoke alarms in the hospital rooms going off, a problem which was found to be most effectively dealt with by putting a latex glove over the smoke alarm for the duration of the ceremony.
The Council has also worked to help identify each of the traditional medicines and to label them for use in the hospital so nurses can watch for any possible conflicts in medication. They have also developed consent forms to release health practitioners from being held libel for traditional healing in which they are not qualified.
The success of the 'Manitoulin experiment' in combining traditional and western medicine has led the Aboriginal Health Office of the Ministry of Health to fund the development of an 'exportable' manual, which Lewis is working on.
Lewis, who was born in Wikwemikong, a First Nations community on eastern Manitoulin, says "the main focus is on developing the manual so other hospitals can follow the procedures on how to develop an Anishnabe health policy within their health centres."
She will also be combing the Manitoulin hospitals for any "cultural gaps" which may persist.
According to Lewis, the Province was quick to realize the value of creating a culturally conducive environment for native patients in areas with large aboriginal populations.
But at the same time she feels such a project is long overdue considering the high percentage of aboriginal patients in many northern communities, and indeed in communities across the country.
Among the facilities to show interest in the manual is the new Sudbury Regional hospital, which has plans to include a traditional medicine lodge.
Like Bailey, Lewis believes in the complimentary nature of traditional and clinical medicine.
"I have seen traditional medicine people for my own well-being," she says. "I have a lot of respect for it."
"What I find with the western medicine is it just deals with one issue of the physical well-being of yourself...they concentrate on the symptoms rather than the causes. Traditional medicine and healing will look at all areas and tell you why and how this (ailment) came about. If you're not emotionally well it develops into a physical illness."
Lewis thinks the mainstream population is, in various ways, starting to embrace this kind of holistic thinking.
"They're realizing that you have to look at all four parts in order to get better: mental, physical, spiritual and emotional well-being."
Bailey agrees. "Attitudes are changing," he says. "I think they have to be."
Even modern medicine is recognizing the limitations of clinical treatment. Carl A. Hammerschlag is a Yale-trained psychiatrist who immersed himself in the methods of Native American healing for over 20 years in the southwestern United States. In his book The Dancing Healers, Hammerschlag writes:
"We now look to science to provide us with the answers to the Great Questions. But the answers to questions about meaning usually lie within ourselves. If we are comfortable only with answers that can be proven, we'll never really get comfortable....Interestingly, it's the physicists, like the priests and the visionaries, who accept this 'Uncertainty Principle'. Nuclear and particle physics yield this new conviction that there are some things you can't predict."
Applied to medicine, this line of thinking amounts to the feeling that perhaps the best cure for your headache lies not in the contents of a bottle of painkillers, but in a more subjective treatment.
Marjorie Shawanda is the traditional healing co-ordinator at Noojmowinteg/Health Access services in Sheguiandah, a First Nations community situated halfway between Wikwemikong and Little Current. She says in traditional treatment, "the medicine is actually a small part of a person's healing."
"Traditional healing is basically preventative," she says. Also, prescriptions for any given illness are fluid and undefinable.
"There isn't really one remedy that is specific to a certain ailment. How many people are walking around taking Tylenol and Aspirin but not addressing their pain?" she asks.
"We don't start telling people what medicines are good for what...it's not part of our belief system."
Shawanda says the subjectivity of healing methods extends to traditional healers as well. One of her roles at Noojmowinteg is to match up patients with an appropriate healer.
"They have strengths in specific areas," she says. "I've never met a healer that works in the same way - they all have different gifts."
Shawanda says that working with the mainstream health system is a challenge because it represents "a whole different way of thinking." Yet, like Lewis and Bailey, she believes in the complementary nature of the two.
"You need to work in collaboration," she says.

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