The Canadian Press
CROSS LAKE, Man.—A remote Manitoba First Nation declared a state of emergency yesterday after six suicides in the last two months and 140 attempts in the last two weeks alone.
Officials from the Pimicikamak Cree Nation, known as Cross Lake, say health workers on the northern reserve no longer can cope.
Band councillor Donnie McKay said the nursing station only is staffed by two nurses overnight.
“They’re going 24 hours and they’re ready to drop,” he warned.
A meeting with Manitoba Health minister Sharon Blady last month resulted in one mental-health worker being sent to the community for an eight-hour shift, he noted.
“It’s ridiculous,” said McKay, who was called by distraught family members to a home a few days ago to talk a man out of taking his own life.
“This wouldn’t happen anywhere else.”
Acting Chief Shirley Robinson said the reserve—about 500 km north of Winnipeg near a Manitoba Hydro generating station—has an 80 percent unemployment rate.
Frustrated residents occupied the generating station in 2013.
They said their traditional lands regularly are transformed into a floodway, and none of the promised economic development and employment programs has materialized.
Premier Greg Selinger personally apologized a year ago for the damage caused by the hydro development to Cross Lake’s traditional land, way of life and cultural identity.
After that apology, Robinson said there was a sense of hope but that quickly vanished.
“There is lots of despair,” he lamented.
