Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today.
We will provide a brief summary of the document we have provided which will give you greater context. We are, of course, very interested in questions.
One of the things I want to focus on is that our response to the pandemic is characterized by our partnership with both the federal government and provincial government. Further, there are additional partnerships that exist with each of the five regional health authorities within the province of B.C. This, I would say, is a unique situation in Canada for first nations, and our response and our ability to respond have benefited from those partnerships and relationships.
One of the things I would use as an illustration is that as we have moved into the COVID response, one of the innovations that has been developed is the first nations virtual doctor of the day. This was done by working with the rural and remote coordinating committee, which is a subcommittee of physicians in B.C., with our First Nations Health Authority staff in partnership, and then working with the Ministry of Health in terms of using primary care resources to carry out this important innovation.
This has enabled us to provide primary care services in contexts where no longer have physicians been able to travel into rural and remote communities. This is an example of how we've pivoted our services in the midst of COVID response. Similarly, we are doing mental health services, even including traditional healers and other cultural supports through this mechanism.
I would use as a further example that we have developed partnerships with groups, like the Red Cross, which are also part of our readiness and ability to deploy resources such as volunteers to meet our anticipated surges.
These are some of our partners.
One of the challenges we have worked through in our tripartite approach are the PPE issues. Obviously, this is a global issue, but we've been able to address and develop mechanisms for distribution so that we are covering some of the basic needs. However, I would say that there is much to do on that.
There is point-of-care testing, which is evolving under the first nations context, again to make sure we're covering the gaps.
There are also discussions with emergency management. Our response is based also on the relationship to overall emergency management, with a specialization in pandemic response on our part.
I just wanted to make some of those general comments and then pass it over to Shannon to talk about our circumstances and our data.