Northern chiefs decry COVID-19 silence

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This article was published 16/03/2020 (2177 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — Northern Manitoba chiefs are growing increasingly concerned over numerous unanswered questions from Ottawa about COVID-19.

“I feel as if the government isn’t taking First Nations health seriously,” Chief Eric Redhead of Shamattawa First Nation told the Free Press.

“We’re in a forgotten portion of Canada,” said Redhead, whose community is 750 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg.

Indigenous Services Canada, which runs health services on reserves, has arranged weekly phone calls with northern Manitoba leaders about the coronavirus, conscious of federal shortfalls in the 2009 outbreak of the H1N1 swine flu.

During that outbreak, Manitoba’s northern reserves had an infection rate that was five times the national average.

ISC said this week it has rolled out swab tests and is helping pay for new equipment for nursing stations.

But Redhead said his officials are scrambling to get supplies, and lack a plan for dealing with an outbreak.

“The nurses have no idea what’s going on. They don’t have adequate supplies; they don’t have information about this virus,” he said.

“They’re like a fish out of water.”

NDP MP Niki Ashton, who represents northern Manitoba, has raised concerns every day this past week on Parliament Hill about a repeat of the H1N1 virus, in which Ottawa sent body bags to some reserves.

“People will die. If we don’t take this seriously more people will die,” she told reporters Friday.

She noted that it’s impossible to follow federal guidance about washing hands and social distancing in places with overcrowded homes and undrinkable water. “This is chilling,” she said.

Ashton had said certain communities were not hearing from Ottawa, but said those leaders did not want to be publicly named.

Redhead said he’s now going public, because multiple attempts at getting answers from Ottawa have been fruitless.

York Landing Chief Leroy Constant said his community has many of the same concerns.

ISC has given its tribal council $200,000 to buy equipment such as hand sanitizer and masks for the 11 remote communities. Redhead said that’s a pittance.

“The majority of that (money) is going to go to shipping these products.”

This week, Ashton asked the federal Liberals to have the military on standby in case remote communities don’t get sufficient equipment. Ice roads are officially closed in a week, though many still remain in use for supplies past the date the province has deemed them unsafe.

The senior official overseeing reserve nursing stations told the Free Press that ISC is tracking every phone call, email and letter, and expects to reach more people as communities organize their response to COVID-19.

“We have been regularly communicating to health directors, frontline personnel, chiefs, leadership, tribal councils and health authorities,” ISC Senior Assistant Deputy Minister Valerie Gideon said Friday.

“We are trying to ramp up and reach a saturation point with respect to communications.”

Last Thursday, Gideon said her staff are also exploring private-transportation options to prevent frail patients headed to hospitals in places like Winnipeg for routine procedures from infecting others. She disclosed that drove up infections during the 2009 outbreak of H1N1.

“Individuals that need to travel out in order to be able to access medical care, like during H1N1 — that was the source of some of the first exposure particularly in remote and isolated communities,” Gideon testified.

She said the department has asked communities to share when people are being tested, but ISC is only told when a case tests positive.

“We have not seen or done any modelling specific to the Indigenous population around COVID-19,” Gideon said.

This weekend, Saskatchewan officials confirmed a case of COVID-19 in the province’s north in the community of Southend, which sits 80 kilometres west of the Manitoba border.

Meanwhile, ISC said it might deploy “isolation tents” for the first time if cramped communities have cases.

Officials clarified Thursday that these would be heated, and that they might be the best option for a quick, temporary structure that came from consulting health and military officials. They said they’d rely on school auditoriums and other buildings where possible.

Redhead said the military should provide modular homes if need be, but that the option will be less likely if federal officials reach out.

“We’re forgotten among the government officials, so we’re scrambling at the local level,” Redhead said. His community closed schools, and is urging people to not travel between Winnipeg and the reserve of 1,400.

“It’s going to hit hard.”

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca