Editorials

Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Asleep at the switches

By: Editorial June 6 top

Posted: 06/6/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

IT is difficult to sort through the divergent stories of provincial and federal officials concerning the public health response to the H1N1 outbreak on Manitoba's First Nations reserves, to piece together the source of the difficulty. It is alarming, however, that Manitoba Health Minister Theresa Oswald asserts her federal counterpart has spurned offers of help, specifically to make available such basic flu-fighting equipment such as masks and anti-viral medication.

It appears that a great deal of talk has gone on among officials, bureaucrats and front-line workers to "prepare" for the deadly pandemic that public health experts have been warning is imminent. The swine flu, so far, has not proven to be virulent and a good thing, too, because the experience at St. Theresa Point, in northern Manitoba, shows that if it were the deadly sort, the virus would have had its way with a relatively small population in a fairly remote place.

There were 21 people from that community in hospital in Winnipeg mid-week, with hundreds more of the 3,000-plus residents registering at the health centre as suffering symptoms of flu. St. Theresa is one of three reserves at Island Lake, not far from Garden Hill and Wasagamack. Conditions on the reserves are much like those in other Manitoba First Nations -- crowded, substandard housing with substandard sewer and water infrastructure that permits the spread of disease with a rapidity unseen in most urban Canadian centres.

These communities are primed to be hotbeds for pandemic alarm. Logically, they should be at the top of the list for a federal-provincial outbreak response. But fully two months after this country was alerted to H1N1, ministers are giving contradictory accounts about the fine details that people will depend upon with their lives. Friday, federal Health Minister Leona Agluggaq insisted there was no hint of any problem in her recent conversation with Ms. Oswald.

Ms. Oswald's most disconcerting assertion was that this province offered repeatedly to make anti-viral medications available to the reserves, but was turned down.

Canadians expect the hundreds of switches in both jurisdictions to flip instantly when emergency hits. The first news of an outbreak at St. Theresa came from doctors there concerned that the public was unaware of a brewing emergency, with official notice following days later.

The exchange between Ms. Oswald and Ms. Agluggaq does not inspire confidence. The first task is to ensure Island Lake residents get necessary care. A clear account of the dispute should be made public when the emergency has passed and a review has been conducted.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition June 6, 2009 A18

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