Hello. Thank you for that question.
First of all, I want to acknowledge that medical transportation does present a lot of challenges, even in Saskatchewan. A number of our people have come forward, of course, with the rising costs of gasoline now. The mileage is inadequate for them to be able to get somewhere to meet the needs of our people, particularly when they're transporting our people, for example, to a dialysis treatment. Of course, diabetes is very prevalent amongst first nations people. We're not built for this western diet of Big Macs and fast food and processed foods that are sold at the Northern Store. We're off that diet now. It's impacting the health and welfare of our people. Medical transportation is a big issue.
You talked about the language, I believe, in terms of the challenges. The language barrier is huge, particularly for our northern and remote communities. For example, in the Dene community, we had an elder who was sick in one of our hospitals, the Victoria Hospital in Prince Albert, and they could not communicate with the doctors and the nurses. It was as simple as them reaching out to the local tribal council and saying, “Hey, we need a Dene speaker here.” It was a Dene nurse who was working on call on a shift who said this elder needs this, this and this. He finally started getting the treatment that he got.
In terms of the families being there to be able to provide those supports, yes, it's inadequate. I do want to acknowledge NIHB, but they need to bring up their hotel rates. Some of the hotels they keep the families in are inadequate. I would not stay there. I would not keep my family there, but because of the ceiling cap on paying for the hotels, they're putting them in hotels that they shouldn't be staying at, particularly when we did sign treaties and agreed to share the wealth of this land. When our people are sick and they're suffering and they need supports, they shouldn't be staying at a run-down hotel and barely getting the gas they need to support their family member.
There are lots of issues. We need major investments and we need sustainability.
Thank you.