Cat Lake chief pleads for drug abuse help

Create: 12/01/2015 - 19:33

The prescription drug crisis devastating First Nations across northern Ontario boiled over in Cat Lake on Jan. 23, as the community declared a state of emergency and issued a plea for help in addressing the health and safety of band members.
Chief Matthew Keewaykapow issued the call for help to the federal and provincial governments, saying the band could no longer provide essential services or protect its members.
“The situation is beyond our current band resources and we require immediate and long term assistance from our federal and provincial partners,” Keewaykapow said.
An estimated 70 to 80 per cent of the community’s 500 residents are addicted to some form of prescription drug, primarily Oxycodone or Percocet, according to an environmental scan done by the band office.
The users include children as young as 11 years old.
Russel Wesley, a spokesperson for the First Nation, noted that the number of Elder abuse incidents and other crimes in Cat Lake are shockingly higher than other communities of similar size.
The number of people on welfare in Cat Lake has also risen dramatically, from 80 in 2009 to over 200 in 2011, with another 100 applicants on file.
Wesley said that the cash brought into the community each week by the Northern Store for the purpose of cashing checks is now gone the day it arrives as drug users flock to the store.
The Cat Lake state of emergency comes nearly three years after Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) declared a state of emergency across all NAN communities due to rapidly increasing prescription drug addiction rates.
Despite the NAN-wide call for help, NAN deputy grand chief Mike Metatawabin said that response from governments has been “slow or none at all.”
“We’ve done everything we can to bring resources to address the issues,” Metatawabin said. “It’s a serious matter which needs to be addressed as immediately as possible, but yet again we see another First Nation trying to deal with the harmful effects.”
Of growing concern is the prevalence of people in Cat Lake and other First Nations using needles to inject drugs. In Cat Lake since Dec. 1, 2011 the community’s nursing station has exchanged over 500 needles.
Claudette Chase, the medical director of Sioux Lookout First Nations Health Authority (SLFNHA), said the health authority is seeing a huge increase in rates of Hepatitis C across northern Ontario as injection drug use continues to rise.
Use of needles is also raising concerns of a potential HIV outbreak in the communities.
“HIV is obviously on our minds,” Chase said. “Numbers of HIV have been steadily rising in First Nations communities across Canada, moving from west to east. Saskatchewan is starting to have huge struggles with HIV, and cases are starting to show up in Manitoba.”
Chase said that so far neither the government of Ontario nor the federal government is working to address the issue of prescription drug abuse as the epidemic it has become.
“If this was an epidemic of influenza or Tuberculosis, there would be huge resources pouring in from a public health perspective,” Chase said. “I don’t see a response on the level of an epidemic.”
Meanwhile Cat Lake has called for a number of actions to help address its immediate needs.
In a position paper sent to the federal and provincial governments, Keewaykapow said a regional drug search and seizure program is essential. This chief would like regional airports in Sioux Lookout and Thunder Bay to be much more vigilant when it comes to checking passengers. He also wants a checkpoint set up on the winter road connecting the community to Pickle Lake, where all vehicles coming into the community could be searched.
Keewaykapow also pointed to the growing list of people in Cat Lake asking for help in dealing with addiction. Thirty community members have signed up for a suboxone treatment program, should one ever come to Cat Lake. An additional 47 people have signed up for drug addiction counciling, although the community has no such program available.
He said a community-run land-based treatment program may be one solution.
“Cat Lake First Nation has effectively used land-based treatment in the solvent abuse sector,” Keewaykapow wrote. “We feel that a program for oxycodone abuse would be extremely effective; what is required is funding for program development.”

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12/01/2015 - 19:37