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For immediate release
October 18, 2021

 

Treaty Five Territory, Norway House Cree Nation, MB – Norway House Cree Nation is taking further action as numbers of positive cases continue to climb.

Chief Larson Anderson said today that despite the restrictions with community lockdown, school closure, and opening essential businesses only, the number of positive cases are rising daily. As of October 16, 2021, there was a total of 234 cases (109 active and 124 recovered, 1 death).

We require more resources and assistance from the two levels of government. Grateful as we are in receiving one or two nursing staff, we need a team that will come in to assist with the contact tracing and testing. Our teams are exhausted and burnt out.

Overcrowded housing contributes to most positive cases. One home had 15 people with 12 of them that had the virus. There are still 3 that remain negative. Isolation can be several weeks as another becomes positive, and their recovery period is added on to the existing period for the one household.

Our hotel, the York Boat Inn is utilized as an Isolation Centre as well as the Treatment Access Centre in Winnipeg for the contacts with underlying health issues. These two are filled to their capacity.

We requested assistance to transfer our positive cases to an Alternative Isolation Accommodation in Winnipeg. This is a long bureaucratic process with inconsistencies. Where one community was able to get aircrafts five times a day for their people, we are lucky to get two in one week. Even with that, they do not have all the names of our people when they arrive, leaving them outside the tarmac for hours until they have corrected their mistake.

We have managed to look after ourselves with our own nursing staff and testing team. We installed a mobile testing team as well as a surveillance testing team. However, there comes a time when we just need relief from outside.

The Assembly of Manitoba Ambassadors have been asked to come and assist with community patrol to ensure our isolates remain within their accommodations. We are doing everything we can to contain these positive cases.

A conference call meeting is being held later today with Dr. Roussin and Dr. Anderson to discuss Provincial Critical Red Public Health Order for Norway House.

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For more information:

Chief Larson Anderson
Phone: 204-359-6786

Florence Duncan, Director of Health
Phone: 204-359-6704