By Shaela Maybee, CEO, Seneca Nation Health System
I believe we all have a part in maintaining a healthy community. A healthy community, in my perspective, is a population supported both internally and externally to achieve its full potential in quality of life. As Chief Executive Officer of the Seneca Nation Health System (SNHS), I am confident in the services and programs offered to the community, such as primary medical care, dental services, behavioral health counseling, nutrition consultation, parenting classes, and much more. As a community member and user of SNHS services, there are priorities that become near and dear to our work at SNHS. Dedicating our work to the comprehensive wellbeing of our patients has become a foundation to implementing services at SNHS.
Risk factors, family history and statistics are constantly used to highlight, normalize or explain our hardships. We know how disproportionately we are affected by crime, rates of diabetes, experiences of trauma, and other ailments/experiences that lower quality of life. Our community is a distinct sufferer to the opioid epidemic, alcohol use, and other forms of addiction. Addiction affects more than just the individual; the household, family, and community are all affected, too. Therefore, our response must be specific to the individual and encompass all of those affected. One of the cruel and devastating realities of addiction is the lack of any gold standard or “tried and true” models for recovery. There is no magic one-size-fits-all approach. There is no reason great enough – not the wants of others, not the suffering of parents, disappointment and fears felt by friends, codependency of spouses, enabling behaviors of well-meaning support systems, or other reactions that will ensure willingness to accept treatment and shift toward recovery.
In all that we do, SNHS aims to meet individuals where they are. By working respectfully with individuals, aligned to their beliefs, with their goals in mind, we can work with those who are willing to accept the help. We have resources, support groups, staff to coach and support- various tools, services, and programs (many of which you can read more about in this special newsletter) to help those with an addiction(s), their loved ones and family members, and community members.
Please reach out to us with any questions or to initiate services.
