Northern leaders angry, say a nurse brought COVID-19 to Stony Rapids

For the second time during this pandemic in Saskatchewan, COVID-19 was unknowingly spread to a remote and vulnerable community by one of the province’s health care workers.

On Friday, the northern Saskatchewan community of Stony Rapids confirmed its first case of the virus in one of the town’s nurses, according to a Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations (FSIN) press release.

Along with the virus being brought to the hamlet, fear, anxiety and a lot of unanswered questions have also come for the leaders of the nearby communities of Black Lake and Fond du Lac.

“I just don’t get it, I don’t. We did what we had to do at our band level. We took measures, we isolated our community over a month now,” said Fond du Lac Chief, Louis Mercredi.

“We started taking control of everything here and the only people that have been bringing this disease to these First Nations communities is the provincial health care staff. What’s going on?”

According to Mercredi, he has heard the nurse who spread the virus to Stony Rapids was previously working with COVID-19 patients in Saskatoon. However, this was neither confirmed nor denied by any of the Athabasca Health Authority (AHA), Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) or Ministry of Health all citing privacy as the reason for not being able to answer the question. 

More queries into the situation directed to the Ministry of Health were re-directed to the SHA which then pointed in the direction of the AHA to answer all questions regarding the case, despite there being close collaboration between all three organizations.

According to the AHA CEO, Darryl Galusha, they follow all the same health protocols that SHA does for nurses and other health care workers travelling to new communities.

“Staff are screened upon arrival for their shift. This will include a temperature check, as well as screening questions about their health and recent work,” he said.

But given the fact this is the second time the virus has been spread to a vulnerable community by a health care worker and the fact that people who have the virus can remain asymptomatic for multiple days, leaders of these vulnerable communities don’t think what is currently being done is enough to properly protect them.

“They should have done better. This is now another case of a provincial health care nurse bringing COVID-19 into our First Nations,” said Black Lake First Nation Chief, Coreen Sayazie, in an FSIN media release on Saturday.

“Southend should have been the example that the province and Saskatchewan Health Authority learned from.”

Although none of the province’s health organizations would say how many people are awaiting test results, again citing privacy as the reason, there are at least a handful of people who have been tested for the virus, according to Sayazie’s statement in the release.

And at least one person from Fond du Lac was exposed to the infected nurse, according to Chief Mercredi.

“He hasn’t been tested, said they are going to do it tomorrow or today,” Mercredi said on Monday, two full days after the initial case was reported.

“This is a serious thing. It should be done right away, why wait the whole weekend in order to test someone? If they are trying to save a buck, you know, save a buck or save a life, what would you do?”

Both Sayazie and Mercredi agree that if the situation in their communities gets worse, they will hold the provincial government and the health authorities liable and are even threatening legal action.

But, when asked if the responsibility for this particular exposure should be laid upon the province’s health authorities, the government or elsewhere, Galusha pointed to each individual’s role in slowing the spread and the reactionary stance of the AHA during this pandemic.

“COVID-19 is present in the province.  Each individual is responsible for self-monitoring to taking preventative measures to prevent transmission, including physical distancing, washing their hands often, and staying home when they are ill,” he said.

“When cases do occur, it is the responsibility of public health to act quickly, to ensure that the individual self-isolates and that contact tracing is done.”

On Wednesday, the AHA implemented the same continuous mask policy that the SHA announced the day before. According to Galusha this policy “ensures that all healthcare providers will be masked in any facility where there is a potential for patient contact.”

According to FSIN Vice-Chief David Pratt, these new measures are a positive step forward but they should have been done sooner.

“I think them taking every measure possible to ensure the spread doesn’t take place in those communities is, by all means, important and we are very pleased with it,” he said.

“But I think if we would have ratcheted up the testing it could have been prevented. From my understanding, the nurse did not exhibit any symptoms until a day or two after leaving the community so I think that is a big issue and concern right now is to ratchet up testing and to make sure that not just people that are showing symptoms are getting tested but that we increase it more and more.”

According to a government spokesperson, “the Premier and the Minister of Health have directed the Saskatchewan Health Authority to work with the Athabasca Health Authority to provide a full explanation regarding this situation as well as a detailed summary of the protocols that were in place to protect the staff and residents at this facility.”

However, it was not specified when that summary would be given.