Conventional medicine is not enough to deal with the global swine flu pandemic, says a Dene healer who urged the medical community to pay more attention to traditional medicine.

With swine flu hitting aboriginal communities especially hard, western health-care providers need to include traditional healing practices in treatment, said Besha Blondin, a healer from Déline, N.W.T.

Blondin gave a presentation on the topic to delegates this week at the International Congress on Circumpolar Health in Yellowknife.

"They don't ask the medicine people or healers for help. They tend to do all their drugs and everything through the pharmacist," Blondin told CBC News.

"They don't think that we can help them. I think in this modern society, the world [has] got to change their attitude. They have to start using the traditional medicine people."

'Utilize us!'

She said when aboriginal communities in Manitoba were hit with swine flu cases, she wished people had called on her to help out with traditional ceremonies and medicines.

"If the people there in the community asked us, the medicine people, to help them, we would be there right now. We wouldn't hesitate to be afraid of a disease," she said.

"We get tired of telling people, 'Utilize us! Let us work together. Let us combine our medicines together.'"

Blondin said she feels positive about the outlook of the swine flu pandemic, but said traditional aboriginal knowledge needs to be incorporated into dealing with it.

Hundreds of health researchers from Canada, the United States and other northern nations are meeting at the congress until Thursday.