Thank you.
I'd like to thank the standing committee for the invitation to present today.
I have listened to some of the previous witnesses to have an idea of what was being presented, and not to say the same things that you've already heard.
I represent the Sioux Valley Dakota Nation. It is the only self-governing first nation in Manitoba, and they have a tripartite agreement for governance. We are in a unique situation. We're able to create our own laws and break a lot of the barriers that my colleagues here are still facing. These are quite difficult issues.
The Dakota Oyate Lodge is a 26-bed personal care home located within the community of Sioux Valley. We're half an hour from Brandon, which is a big city in Manitoba, even though people only know of Winnipeg. We have good access to services in our proximity to the main city and to the hospital, but you would never know we're there.
A lot of the issues we face are that we are still not part of the RHA, regional health authority, so we aren't given the same sort of latitude that the RHA personal care homes or long-term care facilities are given. We don't have the supports and services that the other long-term care facilities have that are just 15 minutes down the road. We don't get OT support, speech-language, dietitian services, rehab services, mental health services. We have to pay for all those things, whereas they are part of the RHA.
We have to pass Manitoba health standards. You have to meet 26 standards and about 500 points to be licensed as a personal care home in the province. Twenty months ago, we completed and passed our standards. For the last 20 months our licence has been sitting on the minister's desk to be signed. We've completed our framework agreement. Both the band and Manitoba Health have agreed to it. It's sitting on the minister's desk.
Without that licence being signed, we aren't able to take what are called level 4 people into our home. We have four levels of care in Manitoba. Level 1 is usually maintained in the home through the home care program. Level 2N, which means they have no behaviour issues, are also looked after by the home care program. Level 2Ys and 3Ys come into our care home. We aren't allowed to accept level 4s, those who are in most need.
We do have a young man in our home right now because it is his home community. He is paralyzed from the neck down due to a head injury. He came home to live in our care home. We have the only facility with bariatric-size rooms in the whole of Prairie Mountain Health, which encompasses a great part of southern Manitoba. This man comes with absolutely no funding. He can't get any assistance from anywhere. He's a man living at home, and he has no money coming in. He stays in our facility for free because he needs to be at home. He needs to be around his family, but because we aren't allowed to accept level 4s, we can't get funding for him. It's a despicable situation, in my mind.
When we speak today, I would ask you to think about your family. Put yourself in the situation. If you got injured today or if you have MS, cerebral palsy, a young child who is autistic, you're going to end up in our home because in a first nation community, there is nowhere else to go. Sioux Valley is embarking on a venture to increase the services around the long-term care process and the chronic care process by adding 12 independent living facilities that will be located on the same property as the long-term care facility.
With home care programs, there are not enough people and not enough money to do around-the-clock care or even evening care for most of the clients. We would reach out and do that from the care home. We're looking at breaking some barriers to change the process. Since we don't have to live within those agreements now, we can make the required changes that work best for the community.
We service only indigenous people. We have people from all the reserves around southwest Manitoba as well as eastern Saskatchewan. We have Dakota, Cree, and Ojibwa people all the time, so we are servicing that cultural piece.
We also do all the palliative care. There is no funding for it, no training for it, but as a nurse, you do what you have to do, and we do it.
We have residents who have critical wounds. As I'm sure most of you are aware, diabetes is so rampant that wounds become stage 4, which are extremely deep and difficult to deal with. We can't get proper dressing supplies. We basically have gauze, tape, and saline. To get the proper dressing supplies that we need, we have to fill out paperwork to send to first nations and Inuit health branch, and if they approve it, then we get it, but it's only for a certain amount of time and then we have to reapply and show the need and the cause, or we send the person out of the community to be treated in the city.
Again, at their worst, they're not allowed to be at home. As we all know, none of you would want to be shipped to Toronto if you couldn't be cared for in Ottawa. That just wouldn't cut it.
Dialysis service is another issue. We have service in Brandon, but we don't get transportation to take our people to dialysis because technically you are supposed to live within a half hour of the facility from which you are getting the treatment. Well, we do. In Sioux Valley we do live a half hour away, but they still don't see that as right. They expect everyone to move from their home in Sioux Valley to Brandon to be near the hospital. Dialysis treatment takes about three hours, three times a week, and for the rest of the time patients are supposed to live in a city where their families may or may not be able to come to visit on a regular basis.
Our residents struggle with the ghosts of the past. We still have adults in there who have been through residential school and certainly the sixties scoop. All of these issues are still alive and well in their memories today. They have difficulty with care from non-indigenous people, and the women definitely don't want to have care from men. We have to do a lot of work around being culturally appropriate even in the world of today where a nurse is a nurse and if you're a health care aide, it doesn't matter if you are male or female, you do the work. However, we are very conscious of the culture and of making sure that our residents receive the care they are most suited to and are comfortable with.
A benefit of not being part of the RHA is that we we are able to work with our residents as their needs present. We do have the policies and we do have the rules that we have to follow because of standards, but at the same time, for our residents, it's very much central that they come first.
Just to wrap up, I'm very honoured to be here. This is a nice step in going forward and at least understanding what is happening out there.
When anyone is in Manitoba, please come and visit us.