Hi. I'm Sandra Lamouche. I'm the director of health for the Treaty 8 First Nations of Alberta, and with me is Florence Willier, who is a Driftpile First Nation council member.
Driftpile got an invitation to be a witness, and we're going to talk about something new. They actually do not have a long-term care facility in Driftpile, but they want to be a pilot location, and they have already started the research process.
The two folks who were just talking, who I believe are from Dakota and Fort Qu'Appelle hospital, represent the two systems we need to learn from. Dakota is facing challenges, and we see those challenges in Alberta as well with our health centres. It's something that we need to learn as a type of best practice, and we need to look at Fort Qu'Appelle's success story.
Driftpile is working in partnership with the Province of Alberta and the funding agency in the federal government to start a pilot project in continuing care for an elders lodge. The two will be working together, side by side, utilizing health services such as nursing through the health unit right in Driftpile, and will hopefully be building this facility near the health centre.
That's the project we're looking at, and Treaty 8 is helping out. We're the folks bringing the two parties together. That's my job.
Florence is sitting here, and I'm going to give her the floor for a bit to describe where they are with the project, and to describe her community in a little more detail.