Bonjour, everyone. My name is Mike Kirlew. I'm a physician. I work in the Sioux Lookout region. I work in the small community of Wapekeka, about 550 kilometres northwest of Sioux Lookout. I've been there for about 10 years, and in my 10 years I can say that first nations individuals who live on reserve receive a standard of health care that's far inferior to what other people get—not just a little inferior, far inferior.
The grand chief had mentioned the Auditor General's report. The Auditor General's report made a statement. It said:
...Health Canada did not have reasonable assurance that eligible first nations individuals living in remote communities in Manitoba and Ontario had access to clinical and client care services and medical transportation benefits....
What does that look like on the ground? What is the real life on the ground? Let me paint you a couple of pictures.
Imagine a young person who breaks a leg. He or she comes in to the clinic and the leg is on a virtual right angle, and you do not have adequate supplies of the pain medication that is needed. It takes nine and a half hours for that medevac to come in, and the entire time, because that supply of morphine is not there in sufficient quantities, you hear that person screaming—the entire time. That is the reality.
What is another reality? Let's say you have an individual who needs to get a tube down his or her throat because of a very severe infection, a bad pneumonia. You will not have enough medication to treat that person appropriately, and there's a good chance that you will run out. You can see that person with that tube in his or her mouth, as you hold his or her hands down so he or she doesn't reach and grab for it. The person tears. The person remembers.
It means that you run out of oxygen or have to use techniques to ration the oxygen. You see children gasping for breath. We run out of a medication called Ventolin. That's an asthma medication that helps open up the airways for children and adults with severe asthma. If you run out of that, they gasp for hours until the plane arrives. Imagine those of us sitting here as parents, if we're watching our children and that's what's happening to them. They're gasping.
At Sioux Lookout, the biggest concern of women who are pregnant is whether they are going to have an escort. Are they going to have to go and deliver their baby by themselves, or will they have somebody to at least hold their hand? That's my patients' number one fear, that they're going to deliver alone. Or will they be denied an escort?
For my patients who are palliative, their biggest fear is that they will die alone, that there's no one from their community to hold their hand—no one. No one to hold your hand. From the moment that you are born to the moment you die, your life is dominated by non-insured—dominated. That is unacceptable.
I see parents who recognize their kids might have learning difficulties, might have developmental difficulties, and there's no way to get them any services—very little. Time goes on, and they're more and more delayed.
That is the reality. That is what that statement means. That is what that statement looks like on the ground.
Section 12 of the non-insured health benefits policy states that non-insured will not cover certain types of travel. It even mentions that it is impossible to appeal this. The very first thing that it excludes says that they will not cover travel for compassionate reasons, period. We will not cover for compassionate reasons.
In health care, compassion is not something we should innoculate our health care system against. When we start losing our compassion, we lose our humanity. People are suffering, and children are dying every single day. That's what that statement by the Auditor General means.
There needs to be drastic change quickly. The longer we wait, the more people will die. The more time we wait, the more children will die. I appeal to you today, not as politicians, not as members of political parties, but as mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, aunts, and uncles. Let's return the humanity to this process. This process needs that humanity.