Cree Board of Health and Social Services of James Bay

The Cree Board of Health and Social Services of James Bay (CBHSSJB) is responsible for delivering health and social services in the Cree territory of Northern Quebec, Canada. The Cree Board of Health and Social Services of James Bay comes from the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement that was settled between the Cree, Inuit, Quebec government and Federal government. The Cree are one of Canada's indigenous First Nations.

The CBHSSJB presently has a regional hospital centre and nine clinics spread over a geographic area similar in size to France. Clinics offer emergency and family medicine and are called Community Miyupimaatisiiun Centres. Miyupimaatisiuun (literally "being alive well) is the Eastern James Bay Cree word for health. All CMCs have permanent medical staff.

The CBHSSJB has a Public Health Department with the mandate of preventing disease and protecting, measuring and promoting the health of the population. One of the most important challenges facing the Department is an epidemic of obesity and diabetes in the Cree population.

The CBHSSJB operates youth group homes in Chisasibi and Mistissini and a regional youth rehabilitation centre in Mistissini.

History

The Cree Health Board was created in 1978 in the wake of the signing of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement between the Quebec Cree and the Government of Quebec in 1975. Part of this land claim agreement deals with health. Under the agreement the Crees were entitled to the same health services as other Quebecers and Canadians, but they wanted to run their own health services in their own language and in a way which would incorporate traditional values and a Cree ethos.

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