Story: Tough week last week for Dr. Elise Weiss, the medical officer of health for the Assiniboine and Brandon Regional Health Authorities, to apparently draw the short straw and get to fill-in in Winnipeg as acting medical officer of health for the entire province while Dr. Joel Kettner was out of office.
Tough because there was a full-blown outbreak of flu-like respiratory illness cases under way, several of which have been now been laboratory confirmed as H1N1 influenza "swine flu," on the St. Theresa Point First Nation, a fly-in only reserve this time of year in the Burntwood Regional Healthy Authority's southernmost area just a fraction north of the 53rd parallel.
Oops. Did we name the community as St. Theresa Point First Nation, thinking that more than 20 people in hospital suffering from flu-like symptoms might be a matter of public interest at the moment? Why, yes, we did.
On the contrary, Weiss, following the dictates of political correctness, refused to name the community of St. Theresa Point First Nation, even though it is well within her discretion under Manitoba's Public Health Act to do so.
At first she tried to suggest in follow-up questions, during a raucous June 3 live press conference in Winnipeg, combined with a teleconference for rural and Northern media, that Manitoba's Personal Health Information Act was somehow relevant in her decision not to name St. Theresa Point as having confirmed H1N1 cases. When that didn't fly for long, she admitted she could release the information naming the community, but wasn't going to in what amounted to a misguided attempt not to stigmatize St. Theresa Point First Nation residents.
It was an interesting spectacle to having the acting medical officer of health for Manitoba on one hand say the H1N1 virus is likely present in all regions of the province now, but yet claim it would stigmatize St. Theresa Point First Nation residents to identify the community.
And while it's fine, as far as it goes, to tell residents they should be taking the same hygieneprecautionsagainst the H1N1 swine flu virus anywhere in the province - wash your hands often, cover coughs and sneezes, etc.-some residents might opt to add masks to that list if they knew they were going into a community with as many respiratory illness cases as St. Theresa Point has - or delay the trip altogether, if feasible, until the wave of infections, passes as it will. Hard to do if no one in the province will officially tell you what's going on at St. Theresa Point First Nation - or any other community should they experience a similar outbreak.
The first sworn duty of a medical officer of health - be it the provincial one or the regional one - is to protect the public health, not to engage in exercises of political correctness.
But Weiss clearly cared about being politically correct during her week in the limelight as acting chief medical officer of health for the province. She found time to warn hoteliers not to bar people with the flu from renting rooms, saying, "There is currently no public health reason to turn away guests from any community in Manitoba or elsewhere across the world." Weiss' letter was prompted by reports that some residents of the St. Theresa Point First Nation staying at the St. Regis Hotel in downtown Winnipeg had been asked to leave.
While it made a good headline for Weiss, discordant notes were later sounded when Jim Baker, Manitoba Hotel Association president, cautioned against jumping to conclusions, saying the hotel might have been asked by Health Canada to move the guests to another hotel.Whatever the truth of that turns out to be, and even if being politically correct were a legitimate consideration, which we believe it in no way is, the stigma argument is pretty much of a canard, when you have Chief David McDougall of the St. Theresa Point First Nation saying publicly daily there are confirmed cases of swine flu on the reserve and many other people in hospital suffering from flu-like symptoms.
Other provincial health officials didn't acquit themselves much better last week. Dr. Lisa Richards, the BRHA's medical officer of health, parroted the party line, saying, "I will also not be able to confirm any H1N1 results by community. If there is a public health reason to identify a community, the Public Health Act allows for community identification. However, identifying communities is not needed now, as all communities likely have the virus and the same precautions should be taken throughout Manitoba."
Right.
"You are likely aware that St. Theresa Point is a First Nations Inuit Health (FNIH) community, and although it sits within the Burntwood region, BRHA has no jurisdiction over delivering health care services to this community," Richards said. "BRHA does not receive any specific case information on individuals from FNIH communities, although we do work closely with FNIH on many public health-related issues. What I can tell you is that all confirmed H1N1 cases identified to date in individuals residing in the Burntwood region (4) are from FNIH communities."
If the very public spat last week, now apparently patched up, between Manitoba NDP Health Minister Theresa Oswald and federal Conservative Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq over co-ordinating efforts between Manitoba Health and First Nations Inuit Health on St. Theresa Point are any indication of the type of working "closely" Richards is referring to, God help St. Theresa's Point.
