Virginia May Katt

Mae is Ojibway from Temagami First Nation. She is a Primary Health Care Nurse Practitioner and holds an Honours Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing, Master of Education (Curriculum Specialty) and an Honorary Doctorate of Laws degree from Trent University.

Her diverse nursing career includes mental health and substance use, adolescent health, maternal and child health and community health. She has a strong health policy and research background in community development, youth suicide, early psychosis, cancer care, health human resources and acquired brain injury.

In clinical practice she provides primary care in an Indigenous high school and mental health and substance use treatment in remote and rural First Nations. She coordinated an opiate-agonist treatment program at a high school that successfully eliminated high opioid prevalence at the school.

She was appointed by the Minister of Health to the Mental Health and Addictions Leadership Council responsible for the implementation of Ontario’s Phase 2 of the Mental Health and Addictions Strategy. She has also worked as senior administrator responsible for First Nations health programs, both as Regional Director (Ontario) for Health Canada’s First Nations and Inuit Health, and as Health Director at Nishnawbe Aski Nation, representing 49 First Nations in northern Ontario.

As a researcher affiliated with the Centre for Rural and Northern Health Research for 30 years, she has taken the lead in developing appropriate knowledge transfer strategies for several projects done in partnership with First Nations.