I have with me Chief Bart Tannsie, from the Hatchet Lake Denesuline First Nation. I guess I'll be speaking.
I want to say good afternoon to you, Madam Chair and members of the committee. I'm Don Deranger, vice-chief of the Prince Albert Grand Council.
I want to thank you for giving me the invitation to appear before you to address the concerns, preparedness, and response plans for first nations of the Prince Albert Grand Council on the H1N1. I just want to brief you a little bit about who we are.
The Prince Albert Grand Council consists of 12 first nations, representing approximately 35,000 members and 24 communities. The 12 first nations are divided into two and four sectors: the first sector, the one far north, the Athabasca Denesuline sector, the Swampy Cree, the Plains Cree and Dakota nations, and the Woodland Cree.
The Prince Albert Grand Council also occupies four treaty areas, Treaties 5, 6, 8 and 10. The land base of Prince Albert Grand Council area is approximately 100,000 square kilometres. This area is located in the greater part of central and northeastern Saskatchewan. The Prince Albert Grand Council is one of the largest tribal councils in western Canada, and we have isolated communities in our jurisdiction as well.
Since the arrival of the H1N1 flu virus, the Prince Alberta Grand Council and its communities have been busy dealing with the challenges associated with this. We have been quite fortunate thus far as we have had no fatal cases in our PAGC communities. With the flu season upon us and the medical experts predicting the next wave of the H1N1 to be this fall, we at the Prince Albert Grand Council are doing our best to prepare our communities with the best possible pandemic plans; however, to assist our communities and to ensure the plans developed are effective, there are a number of issues we need to reflect to ensure that our communities can sustain themselves during the outbreak of the H1N1. These issues include, one, the lack of additional financial support; two, nurse recruitment and retention; and three, the sustainability of programs and services.
The lack of financial resources. The population in each of the Prince Alberta Grand Council communities increases significantly on an annual basis without being reflected in the administration funds. Population and financial increments are lagging, which puts many of our communities at a disadvantage right from the start.
The meagre annual 3% increase does not even begin to address the health issues and the demands that our communities face each year. The Prince Albert Grand Council is expected to prepare for the H1N1 with these limited funds and carry out the day-to-day administrative programs and services, purchase expensive medical emergency supplies and stockpiles of essentials, retain health professionals, etc. Over the past six years, the Prince Albert Grand Council communities have been preparing, with the assistance of NITHA , the third-level service provider, pandemic plans that would assist communities in being prepared for the H1N1 flu outbreak. In that sense, we are fortunate; however, there is still the underlying fear of running our already financially exhausted budgets to a stage where financial recovery will be a burden long after the H1N1 virus has made its mark.
The federal government needs to acknowledge the fact that this issue is long-standing and needs to be addressed before we can expect our communities to have adequate and effective plans in our communities.
Nursing recruitment and retention. The Prince Albert Grand Council communities continue to struggle with the retention and recruitment of our nurses in our communities. Nurses working in first nations communities are not treated fairly when it comes to financial compensation. Nurses working for the provincial system receive substantial increases and incentives that draw them out of our communities because we cannot compete with the provincial pay scales. The federal government has not recognized the fact that we do not receive any additional resources to compensate nurses working our communities.
The lives of our members will be jeopardized because we will not have the medical professionals in our communities to assist when the H1N1 outbreak arrives in full force. The lack of nurses is a major issue that needs to be addressed because of how it affects how well we are prepared to take care of our people during the outbreak. It is a critical issue that needs to be acknowledged and can no longer be ignored. We need to address this issue before the outbreak is upon us.
An example of the nursing crisis we face in some of our communities is that there are service contracts being set up with emergency medical service providers. They contract nursing personnel from far and wide just to have the coverage in a community for the weekend. Nurses are becoming stressed out and end up going to work for the province because we cannot compete with the provincial nursing pay scale.
The final issue I want to bring forward is the sustainability of programs and services. The expectation that the Prince Albert Grand Council communities must continue to operate, develop, and plan for the H1N1 flu outbreak on the existing budgets and resources is no longer acceptable. Additional resources are needed to be able to sustain the existing programs and services in our communities. The Prince Albert Grand Council has developed its own contingency plan for where areas of critical response may be required and how we will respond to the communities that will experience cases of the H1N1. Due to provisions of additional second levels in nursing, training, education, and prevention, assistance in the development of pandemic plans has been extremely beneficial and rewarding in terms of keeping the spread at a very low rate. Pandemic planning in our communities has been ongoing for the past six years or more and continues to be a priority with the Prince Albert Grand Council.
In all, with the exception of the three areas identified, the Prince Albert Grand Council has taken a very keen interest in making sure that our communities are prepared for the H1N1 flu season. It is hoped that there will be positive response from the federal government to recognize our needs.