The Southern Chiefs’ Organization of Manitoba asked that Indigenous Services Canada and the Canadian federal government allow a Cuban healthcare brigade be deployed to serve in local First Nations’ communities during the COVID-19 outbreak.
For those who are not familiar with the Cuban International Medical Brigades, they are integrated teams of health professionals who have been deployed around the world to provide quality health care to people left to rot by free market health care, which rations life and death based on your ability to pay.
Southern Chiefs’ Organization Grand Chief Jerry Daniels said that the 34 Anishnaabe and Dakota communities his organization represents need help from outside because the “limited pre-existing health resources,” are “being strained” by the pandemic. “We see the writing on the wall. We are going to have a service shortage and we don’t want doctors deciding who is going to live or die.” Daniels continued, “We want to get ahead of it, to have the amount of resources available [so] in the event that occurs, or we get close to something like that, we have done everything we could to try to mitigate that and save the lives of our people.”
Daniels’ words are a polite understatement of the danger posed to Indigenous communities by COVID-19 through the criminal neglect of Canada’s federal and provincial governments. Many of these communities have no safe drinking water, much less community health resources that would provide anything remotely like adequate care in a major health crisis.
Indigenous Services Canada issued a statement, filled with the usual meaningless drivel that Indigenous Peoples have become all too accustomed to. The department said it was “working with Daniels’ organization along with the Manitoba government and First Nations community to ensure that health services can handle any COVID-19-related surge.” The department said it is also looking to support health services by deploying other health care professionals, like paramedics, to boost front-line ranks.
Right. Cuba will send a large team of doctors and nurses, who can draw on the experience and expertise of other Cuban Medical Brigades who have been on the front lines of the fight against COVID-19 around the world, and Canada … well, maybe we can spare a few more paramedics … maybe with some bonus medical equipment, like isolation tents and body bags.
Ironically, the Southern Chiefs’ Organization had already been in talks with Cuba for medical help since December (well before COVID-19) due to the fact that the Canadian government seems to be unable to take the health and well-being of Indigenous Peoples as anything more than a public relations opportunity. If Canada cannot provide decent health care to its citizens in this crisis then the last thing it should do is to stand in the way of a group of doctors who are willing to serve because they come from a country that believes that health care is really a human right and are willing to act on this belief in an act of international solidarity.
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland appeared Monday to reject their request, saying “Canada has enough medical resources to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic without international help.” This clearly flies in the face of the experience of these communities, who have no doctors in their communities. “Without an increase of health care workers on site in communities and appropriate medical equipment and supply, our patients will have to be sent outside of their communities for urgent medical care,” said David LeDoux, chief of Gambler First Nation about 350 km west of Winnipeg.
Every Canadian who cares, not just about the rights of Indigenous Peoples, but the rights of all people to health and safety, should support the demand of the Southern Chiefs’ Organization for Cuban help. Any community that is left unprotected could become a centre of infection that spreads this deadly virus further. Unions, organizations of health professionals, community groups, and, c’mon guys … wakey, wakey,the NDP should all demand that we allow Cuba to help where Canada will not.
