EXAMINATION OF THE INSTITUTIONS - HEALTH CANADA
Page 5 of 35
Health Canada
A. METHODOLOGY
Our audit was conducted at the Department’s head office in the National Capital Region and at the Quebec regional office.
We interviewed various managers and staff members at the head office and at the First Nations and Inuit Health Directorate in Quebec, as well as persons responsible for official languages. We also made a few telephone calls to the Quebec offices.
We mainly reviewed the policies, directives, organizational structure, third party contribution agreements, contracts awarded to health professionals, institutional reports and other documents provided by the Department. We also reviewed relevant procedures and systems implemented by HC.
B. OBSERVATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Our observations and recommendations are based on the audit criteria listed in Appendix E of this report.
1. Identifying the clientele and measuring significant demand
In the Quebec region, the First Nations and Inuit Health Directorate provides nursing care and oral health care. This care is provided on the reserves where there are no contribution agreements with the bands for managing these services. The First Nations and Inuit represent a restricted and identifiable clientele because they meet the criteria of paragraph 6(1)(a) of the Official Languages (Communications with and Services to the Public) Regulations and Treasury Board Directive C.
HC has mandated Statistics Canada to assess its restricted and identifiable clientele. Information on the language preferences of Aboriginal community members was collected through a questionnaire mailed to the band chiefs. However, Statistics Canada received a low response rate (approximately 50%). According to this assessment, published in March 2005, HC is required to provide direct health care in both official languages in Quebec only.
HC also examined how Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) sets about establishing the demand for service in the minority official language of its restricted and identifiable clientele, which is more or less the same as that of HC. INAC conducted a telephone census of the band chiefs. The results of this exercise, which had a response rate of 96.2%, confirm the results of the assessment conducted by Statistics Canada for HC.
The assessment of significant demand of its restricted and identifiable clientele concluded that HC is required to provide bilingual services to the following communities:
- Nursing care
- Lac-Rapide
- Winneway (Longue-Pointe First Nation)
- Timiskaming (Notre-Dame-du-Nord)
- Dental care
- Gesgapegiag (Maria)
- Listuguj (Restigouche)
- Winneway (Longue-Pointe First Nation)
- Timiskaming (Notre-Dame-du-Nord)
Therefore, HC meets the audit criterion in relation to identifying the clientele and measuring significant demand.
2. Informing managers of their official languages responsibilities
The managers whom we interviewed are well aware of their linguistic obligations. Senior management informs them of new official languages policies and regularly issues reminders. The managers, in turn, inform their employees of their rights and obligations with regard to official languages and, among other things, stress the importance of drafting and recording bilingual out-of-office messages on the telephone and computer.
Moreover, the First Nations and Inuit Health Directorate has a regional official languages action plan for section 41 of Part VII (Advancement of English and French) of the Official Languages Act. This plan focuses on raising awareness among managers and employees with respect to linguistic duality and the priorities of official language minority communities.
In view of the preceding, we find that HC satisfies this audit criterion.
3. Active offer to health care clientele
We conducted 16 telephone spot checks in the sectors of nursing care, dental care and non-insured health benefits. We spoke directly to almost half of the employees and, in other cases, left messages on employees’ voice mail. We noticed that the staff’s telephone greetings and recorded voice mail messages were often unilingual or partially bilingual, which is contrary to section 28 of the Act concerning active offer.
We did not visit the facilities where services are provided by the staff. Therefore, we are unable to comment on the visual and verbal active offer provided on-site or on the availability of services and publications in the language of the minority. However, the managers we interviewed assured us that in-person service is available in both official languages and signs are posted indicating that services are available in both official languages.
In view of the preceding, we find that HC does not fully satisfy this audit criterion.
| Recommendation 1 |
