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Winnipeg Free Press - ONLINE EDITION

Flu prep: Ottawa ships body bags to northern Manitoba reserves

By: Mia Rabson

16/09/2009 1:51 PM | Comments: 63

OTTAWA - Chiefs in northern Manitoba are not impressed with Ottawa’s most recent shipment of materials to prepare for an expected H1N1 influenza outbreak: body bags.

At least four first nations in northern Manitoba were sent body bags in shipments of supplies from Health Canada intended for the H1N1 influenza.

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Garden Hill Chief David Harper said the nursing station in Wasagamack got 30 body bags and God’s Lake received 20 of them, along with boxes of hand sanitizer wipes and masks. Body bags were also included in shipments to Garden Hill and St. Theresa Point, but Harper said the number was unknown.

Harper said this is an offensive action from Health Canada.

"This says to me they’ve given up," he said.

Harper said normally the RCMP always have a few body bags in their offices on reserve but the nursing station has not received them before.

Manitoba NDP MP Judy Wasylycia-Leis was incredulous and planned to ask the Health Committee this afternoon for an immediate investigation for the "callous, insensitive and incompetent" action.

"It’s unbelievable," she said. "It’s the ultimate expression of incompetence from Health Canada."

She said Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq won’t support the shipments of flu kits and her department took weeks to send hand sanitizer in the spring but now they are sending body bags.

"This is a time of worry and anxiety already and for Health Canada to respond in this way gets to the heart of what the chiefs have been saying about them all along."

Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq said she was disturbed by the reports of the body bags and has ordered her deputy minister to conduct an immediate inquiry into what happened.

mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca

History

Updated on Wednesday, September 16, 2009 at 2:39 PM CDT:
Updates with more detail, reaction.

Updated on Wednesday, September 16, 2009 at 3:16 PM CDT:
Adds reaction from Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq.

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63 Commentscomment icon

Luke,

I'd like to think we're over reacting to the H1N1 flu, but I've got a little boy who is a health risk, and is right now home from school, on the couch with the regular 'flu'...scares the hell out of me. I hope you're right...I also made sure we had a generator by December of '99 lol!

As for the whole body bag thing. Everyone needs to lighten up! The govt. is damned if they do and damned if they don't it seems. I think people are just being way too sensitive here.

Some are defending saying the chiefs media bandwagon-jumping response is NOT sensationalism???? Please. Last night I saw one of those chiefs [edited] on the local news writing on the package of body bags "return to sender" and smiling for the camera with a foolish grin. Honestly how stupid is that? Supplies are being provided (very generously I might add) to remote locations where supplies are not readily available at the drop of a hat. And statistically people WILL die becuase of H1N1 and they will be all colors of people. [edited] If you think you can plan and manage better yourself, for the love of God please do. Wouldn't hurt if you could fund it yourself either.

This pandemic situation was handled very badly from the beginning, not that any aboriginal living on the reserve should be surprised!! Comments from Parliament regarding the hand sanitizers issue, no additional financial resources to develop Pandemic Plans and the list goes on!! Now body bags?? And you wonder why the Chiefs scream every time they have a chance?? Nursing stations are exactly nursing stations, runned by nurses for 10,000 people! Think about it, FN's without running water!! think about it, is it the responsibility of the leadership or the government? We should not be a burden to the governments, lots of white people get their livelihood from the misery of aboriginal people. We are HUMANS like you and that is all we ask to be treated like any other Canadian in this good COUNTRY we now call CANADA!! i

Wow, Aboriginals getting upset at something. SURPRISE! It is not only First Nations that get body bags, they just the only ones who choose to make a big deal about it. Body bags are a necessary item to have on hand in any community, if they were not provided with any and something happened (not even H1N1, but lets say a house fire or car accident) and multiple people died, they would be up in arms that they did not have the proper supplies and would then again be mad at the government. It is a situation you can never win in!

ponikwe, if your comments were directed at me, I'm sorry if you think I am sick, but here's a bit of information for you: body bags are available now to be sent out. The vaccine isn't.

Are you suggesting that they should have decided to hold off sending anything until the vaccine was ready? You obviously know nothing about logistics planning.

I realize the term and idea of body bags might be frightening and make it seem ominous, but it's just planning. If the vaccine was available it would have arrived first, or at the same time.

And to those who label this as a Harper issue, give your head a shake. Harper had nothing to do with this. This was a bureaucratic decision, nothing more.

I absolutely agree with everyone who has stated that this is completely blown out of proportion because of edited reporting. It was a KIT. Believe it or not, people DIE of the flu.

If the flu does indeed become the pandemic outbreak that Canada is preparing for, I really do not want to have sick people from ANY place or ANY race being flown into my city to spread the disease.

If you're a white man in Timbuktu, Manitoba, that goes for you too. All we need is to bring more infected people to HSC, where the only children's hospital is located.

So seriously, you can accept the kits and bodybags, or have your entire community wiped out because you believe the province is going to transport thousands of people to Winnipeg to receive treatment when the hospitals are filled to capacity.

It's not unknown that for whatever reason our first nations people are more susceptible to H1N1 than any other nation. The first wave of it hit the first nations very hard. The province is simply trying to preparing them for the worst of this wave of H1N1 before it hits.

There will always be people who don't get medical help when there is a virus that runs its course through a community and those are going to be the people that are hit the hardest. Sending out the body bags wasn't meant as an insult. It's just to get them prepared and to have them on hand if they are needed. God willing, they won't be needed.

Comment by Luke: "lack of doctors & nurses in the area is something experienced by every rural community. Most health care workers prefer to be in urban centers. And even those have a shortage. Many can not find a family doctor & nurses are often called on to work extra shifts. If there is an epidemic in northern Manitoba, I'm sure doctors, nurses & even army medics will be sent to keep it contained"

Fact #1: the lack of physicians and nurses in the Island Lake area compared to the rest of rural Manitoba is so polarized that you cannot compare them. Historically, they have had approx 26 hours of physician clinical time per week for years. That works out to 1560 minutes per week or 93,600 seconds weekly. So for YEARS these people have each had on average 10 seconds of physician clinical time per week.
Fact #2: there is NOT ONE non First Nation rural Manitoba community with 2500+ people that does not have their own hospital. Why with 10,000 people does Island Lake not have a hospital ?
Fact #3: Dr. Joel Kettner from Manitoba Health stated yesterday that the Province is NOT sending body bags to any Manitoba communities. So quick making the arguement that this was normal procedure.
* Keep the body bags in Winnipeg and send them up as they are needed and as the situation develops. Why people working on this case FULL TIME cannot figure this basic stuff out is beyond me !!! Daren Jorgenson

firstnationlady55:

Considering that no one knows how this flu is going to hit, I think they were just trying to make sure that they would be looked after incase a lot of people did die. It isn't suggesting that everyone is going to die or they aren't going to receive medical care. We have them here in Winnipeg, but if more were sent, are we suppose to be offended as well? I don't think so! Just trying to prepare for the worst and hope it doesn't get that bad..at least they sent the other supplies as well and hopefully it will be enough to keep them all safe :)

Right firstnationlady. We'll wait to send the body bags until people are already dead. Sounds great. So, maybe we should wait until people die to buy them in the first place? What do you think people? Should the WRHA order body bags on a case by case basis one at a time? The bodies will still be fresh when they arrive....right?

FFS is this the FIRST time that body bags have been sent to this community? Do people ever die there for reasons other than the flu? Doesn't it seem just a little like common sense to have them on hand? Shouldn't every hospital and nursing station have them around just in case?

I just don't understand why this had to become a huge issue. I'm sorry you were sent supplies that hurt your feelings. This must be so traumatic for you finding out that people die. Next time we'll send you some tissues too.

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