Chiefs declare state of emergency over flu

By Geoff Kirbyson, Winnipeg Free Press

WINNIPEG — The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs has declared a state of emergency over the H1N1 flu pandemic, a move it hopes will rattle the cages of the province and the federal government and cause them to spring into action to combat the potentially deadly virus.

AMC Grand Chief Ron Evans said he and his fellow chiefs want to ensure government officials are fully aware of the devastating impact the H1N1 virus is having in their communities throughout the province.

“The governments need to step up. There is no plan in place. Nobody wants to accept responsibility for First Nations. There is very little combatting the H1N1 pandemic. Our people are sick,” Evans said at a press conference at the AMC’s downtown headquarters Wednesday.

The AMC’s desperate call for action came as the province announced the number of confirmed H1N1 cases in Manitoba jumped by 163, bringing the total to 458. As of Monday, 37 patients with the most severe flu-like symptoms have been put on ventilators in intensive care units.

Evans and 11 other chiefs decried the province’s inability to complete even the most simple of tasks on a timely basis — getting hand sanitizers into the communities that needed them — describing it as “a political and bureaucratic nightmare.”

Part of the problem is that commonly used hand sanitizer products can contain upward of 60 per cent alcohol and there was concern among health officials as well as some First Nations chiefs, that the sanitizers could be misused for intoxication.

Anne-Marie Robinson, assistant deputy minister of Health Canada’s First Nations and Inuit health branch, told a Senate committee of discussions between chiefs and public health officials about sending alcohol-based products into communities with addiction problems because there have been “rare” cases where it has been problematic. Robinson would not disclose which reserves had been involved in the discussions and never linked the talks with the “difficulty” she acknowledged was experienced in getting hand sanitizer to some of the chiefs who had asked for it.

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