Manitoba Indigenous communities get federal funds for COVID-19 fight

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This article was published 02/04/2020 (1476 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — Indigenous communities will start receiving federal cash next week to fund anti-COVID-19 efforts, though the military says it’s readying to deploy for disasters.

A $305-million spending package from Indigenous Services Canada will go to band councils and Métis communities in Manitoba, as well as Inuit groups and, eventually, urban Indigenous organizations.

Last week, a pair of large First Nations in northern Manitoba asked the military to set up a field hospital to contain a possible novel coronavirus outbreak.

However, it appears the new funding would allow band councils to buy things such as medical tents, in line with a request by Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak to move COVID-19 testing out of nursing stations into temporary structures.

ISC Minister Marc Miller said the military will be reserved for worst-case scenarios. That could mean an outbreak combined with a spring flood.

“We’re looking at catastrophic scenarios in which the military would be deployed, to assist evacuating… or assist in setting up triage situations, hospital-like situations,” Miller told the Free Press.

“It would be foolish to exclude those scenarios, even though they’re things we don’t want to contemplate.”

Miller said his priority is avoiding outbreaks, hopefully, in lockstep with provinces.

The military confirmed this week it’s signing full-time contracts with reservists starting Monday, so they can quarantine and deploy when needed. The army has protective gear and, reportedly, ventilators in its arsenal.

Officials estimate the reservists will make up one-fourth of up to 24,000 personnel ready to respond to COVID-19 threats, with the rest being regular army, air and navy troops.

As for the ISC funding, band councils reported Friday not knowing how much money they’ll receive; the department said it sent out letters specifying those amounts this week.

The 63 First Nations in Manitoba will receive just short of $36 million, sorted by community “based on population, remoteness and community well-being.”

The Manitoba Metis Federation is getting $7.5 million.

The cash is for things such as physical structures, counselling, school alternatives, and food.

The department said it’s trying to reduce the risk of coronavirus spreading through nurses who circulate in and out of remote reserves on two-week shifts.

“We have protocols in place in order to prevent the transmission or the introduction of the virus into the community,” ISC chief medical officer Tom Wong told the Free Press.

“We modify and escalate our approach, as the virus evolves throughout Canada.”

Three weeks after ISC said it has not done any modeling of COVID-19 in Indigenous communities, Wong said his colleagues are asking academics and the Public Health Agency of Canada to share their modeling.

Manitoba MP Niki Ashton said the province-wide shortage of test kits poses an extreme risk in the North. After a confirmed case in Flin Flon, symptomatic locals have been turned away, while many in the North have immune issues and limited housing options.

It is estimated an outbreak on northern reserves would likely strain Winnipeg hospitals.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca