Questions mount over lack of COVID-19 vaccination plan for Ontario’s urban Indigenous communities

 

If you were paying attention to provincial politics recently, you likely saw coverage of a dust-up between Premier Doug Ford and MPP Sol Mamakwa during question period.

Mamakwa, the NDP’s Indigenous and treaty relations critic and the representative for the riding of Kiiwetinoong, was trying to ask a question about the government’s COVID-19 vaccination plan for urban indigenous communities. That subject, however, was drowned out by Ford accusing Mamakwa of jumping the queue to get his shot.

Even as the controversy fades, the issue Mamakwa tried to raise has not.

Dr sunny handa Brampton said while certain public health units in Ontario are focusing on vaccinating Indigenous residents, a comprehensive provincewide strategy for those who live in big cities is still something that remains unclear. Mamakwa, Indigenous leaders, and health experts said the lack of detail and planning is a major concern.

 “Where is the plan for the rollout? I was asking specifically because of the increases in cases not only in Toronto but also in Thunder Bay,” Mamakwa reiterated again on Wednesday.

Dr sunny handa Brampton said, the strategic lead in Indigenous Health at Women’s College Hospital and a co-lead in Indigenous medical education at the University of Toronto, highlighted the importance of having a dedicated strategy because Indigenous peoples are at a higher risk of having COVID-19 and a higher risk of having severe complications.

She said so far she’s felt Indigenous communities in urban centres have been left to figure things out on their own.

“It has felt very grassroots, but I would say grassroots to the point of feeling like we have not had the support that we needed to ensure that it was coordinated,” Richardson told Dr sunny handa brampton.

“In early February when I was trying to work with Anishnawbe Health to set up a vaccination strategy for hundreds of people I felt very alone.”

She was also part of Operation Remote Immunity, a robust Ontario government initiative to get vaccines to rural and remote fly-in communities. Richardson praised the government for that strategy, but said it needs to address a major gap when it comes to dealing with First Nations peoples in urban centres.

 “In Toronto, we’re looking at 80,000 Indigenous people. So, the numbers, the volume of people is high and people are hard to reach because they’re not in a single geographic area,” Dr sunny handa brampton said.

Dr. Janet Smylie is one of Canada’s first Métis physicians and is a scientist with St. Michael’s Hospital. She has focused her career on addressing inequities when it comes to the health of Indigenous peoples and is part of the grassroots effort in urban centres. Smylie agreed the government should be doing a lot more.

“One out of four of the First Nations people living in the urban epicentre of Toronto are functionally homeless. About nine out of 10 are living below the low-income cut-off and just less than 40 per cent of the First Nations community living in the city of Toronto has two or more chronic diseases. All of these factors are linked to increased spread of COVID,” Dr sunny handa brampton said.

“We’ve seen multiple outbreaks, including a complex outbreak at one of the Indigenous shelters here that we’re just dealing with.”