A recent Manitoba government announcement for new personal care beds and health resources provided no extra beds for the north. That hasn't sat well with resident Katy Anderson - or dozens of Flin Flonners who arrived to support her at a Flin Flon city council meeting August 1.
Anderson presented a delegation to councillors, calling on the provincial government to properly fund and finance health care beds in northern communities, including Flin Flon. Councillors agreed with Anderson's points, saying they would do what they can to bring more care beds to the region and work with regional and provincial health groups to make it happen.
Anderson’s delegation was inspired by an announcement made by the provincial government on July 7 – that statement touted the province preparing to build six new personal care homes and adding about 670 care beds, along with the recent opening of new personal care homes in Carman, Niverville and Steinbach. However, the plan included precisely zero new beds for Flin Flon or for any northern Manitoba community – something that Anderson, about 40 meeting attendees and each member of city council at the meeting found lacking.
“I’m very passionate about this issue,” said Anderson.
“This is not just a senior issue. Some people are caring for people who need help, they’re younger – they may need help for themselves down the line. When I was talking with the deputy minister about this, she said it takes about 10 years from starting to see where the need is to actually have the buildings – Flin Flon is at zero right now. If we don’t have something going now in the north, where are we going to be in 10 years?”
Anderson sits on the provincial executive of the Manitoba Association of Senior Communities (MASC) and is part of a provincial steering committee for seniors’ health – she said she spoke at the meeting as a concerned citizen, not as a member of either group. She recalled a conversation with a provincial deputy cabinet minister in which she said the minister said that the north, out of Manitoba’s five health regions, actually had the lowest need for new care beds of all five – a statement that didn’t pass the smell test with her or with people at the meeting.
“I was told by the deputy minister that the north had the least need for new beds out of the five health regions,” said Anderson. At least one council member reacted incredulously to the statement with a half-laugh.
“I’m going to double-check that. I’m going to talk to people, I’m going to go to First Nations, bigger communities and talk to them. It might be a big job, but it’s worth it to me.”
Anderson called for the public to call for better northern health coverage, care beds and staffing, saying she plans to do further research and open up a petition calling for more resources.
“We plan on making and doing petitions. I’m going to be calling on friends, for sure to the seniors’ executive, they’d be willing to do that. We want to do that,” she said.
“We don’t want to just shout. We want to research and get people to do the research – how many beds do we need? What is the lineup for waiting for beds?”
For Anderson and others, the lack of resources allocated for northern health care is part of a larger trend of northern requests for funding or staff being denied or unfulfilled. Recent applications to the province by the City for public safety funding, recreation grants and others have been made, but not approved by Winnipeg.
Council members heard Anderson’s delegation and voiced support of their own for pursuing more health resources in the region, especially in Flin Flon.
“I wanted to say that this battle and other battles in getting the government to recognize the north, it’s a major issue for us,” said councillor Mike Slipp.
“We were always told that government moves at a snail’s pace. To hell with that. We need it now, and we need to not just help with this, we need to work on other things and the government is ignoring us.”
Anderson has already reached out to northern leaders in other communities and northern MLAs, including Flin Flon MLA Tom Lindsey, who voiced support for her mission but could not attend the meeting.
Councillor Steve Lytwyn, who sat as deputy mayor for the meeting while mayor George Fontaine was away with an illness, said he supported Anderson’s ideas and said council would issue a letter of support calling for more health resources, sending it to the provincial health ministry on behalf of the City.
“On behalf of council, we are definitely very, very supportive,” said Lytwyn.
“We will do up a letter of support and send it off to the deputy minister and the minister, as well as to the AMM [Association of Manitoba Municipalities]. I think we can also safely say that, if you need somewhere for a petition to be so people can easily come in and sign it, we could have a copy here and I would encourage everybody to come in and sign up. The more voices we have, the better it’ll be. I appreciate everybody coming out tonight and thank you, Katy, for the presentation.”
