$40-M hospital for northern reserve expected to open in five years

OTTAWA — The northern community of Pimicikamak Cree Nation will get around-the-clock medical care, a safe place for women to give birth and a dialysis unit when a new $40-million hospital opens in five years.

Chief Cathy Merrick told the Free Press Tuesday the announcement — made by Health Minister Jane Philpott at the reserve nearly 800 kilometres north of Winnipeg — has been nearly two decades in the making.

“It means a lot to us,” Merrick said.

Pimicikamak is one of the largest First Nations in Canada, with more than 8,000 band members and more than 6,000 living on the reserve. By population, it is the 10th largest community in Manitoba, bigger than The Pas, Flin Flon, Stonewall, Altona and Swan River.

The difference, however, is that each of those towns has an inpatient health facility with access to 24-hour care. Pimicikamak has a nursing station the community outgrew years ago and doctors are available only during business hours. There are no inpatient beds. Blood work has to be sent to Winnipeg for analysis and can take days to get results.

Anyone who has an acute care need is sent to Winnipeg and Thompson, including women who are due to give birth.

“All we do now is medevac,” said Merrick, referring to the transportation of patients by helicopter or airplanes. “There are four to five medevacs every day.”PCN has a $55 million annual health care budget, of which more than one-fifth is spent on medical flights. Merrick hopes a lot of that money – about $12 million a year – can be reinvested into health care at home.

Negotiations to have full-time physicians on staff will have to be completed with the province, which oversees that aspect, but Merrick was confident that will not be an issue.

Philpott said funding for the new facility is coming from the $270-million fund in the 2016 budget for health facilities on reserves. Manitoba reserves were to receive $50 million from that fund, and $40 million of that is going to Cross Lake. Construction will begin next spring and is expected to take up to four years to complete.

“This is really going to be a game changer for them,” Philpott told the Free Press, as she prepared to fly out of Pimicikamak Tuesday afternoon. “They currently have only an aging and inadequate nursing station. It was built some time ago and it’s way beyond its capacity.”

Philpott was also in Pimicikamak to talk about youth mental health programs. Last month, she announced $69 million for Indigenous mental health services, including a new mobile mental health crisis team in Manitoba which will be ready to dispatch to whichever community needs it at a given time. There will also be six new mental wellness teams in Manitoba.

Pimicikamak, which is still in a state of emergency over a high rate of youth suicides this year, will have full-time mental health wellness workers.

“We’ve never had those services before,” said Merrick.

She said the suicide crisis which gripped her First Nation earlier this year is under control but “it’s still there.”Six young people took their own lives in a matter of weeks last winter and about 140 young people attempted suicide. At one point there were 100 youth in the community on suicide watches.The hospital and the additional mental wellness staff, as well as a temporary youth centre and plans in the works for a permanent solution, are all going to help, Merrick said.

mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca

NT5