Eye van decision offends Ontario reserve

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According to a letter to the Pickle Lake Lions Club, two Indian reserves on the only highway into the small, northern Ontario community

are "at times very hostile territory."

Mishkeegogamang Chief Ronald Roundhead and the Council of Mishkeegogamang were outraged by the decision of the Canadian National Institute for the Blind not to send their mobile eye-care unit to Pickle Lake later this year in part because of what was described as "a definite risk."

Mishkeegogamang, formerly called Osnaburgh, is about 530 km northwest

of Thunder Bay on Highway 599. Pickle Lake is 15 minutes further up the road. The eye van travels in annually to serve the small community. The decision not to send CNIB or Lions volunteers and equipment to Pickle Lake was communicated to local Lions by Eric Kjerulf of

International Falls, Minn., Lions district governor, in a letter dated

Feb. 25, 1995.

"The statement is totally false," according to Dean Caul, president of

the Pickle Lake Lions Club. "The eye van has never had any difficulty passing through the reserves. I have personally been traveling up and down this road for six years, and have never encountered any hostile situation. I believe these facts are a fabrication to use an excuse to not visit Pickle Lake."

According to the letter from Kjerulf, another reason for not including Pickle Lake as a site for the van this year is that the number of

patients requiring care "does not support the additional time required" to travel to Pickle Lake. The decision was apparently communicated to Kjerulf by the CNIB, and is described as "a board decision". Kjerulf's original alternate plan called for the unit to remain in Sioux Lookout, approximately 250 km from the communities, for an extra day-and-a-half

in order to provide patient care to any Pickle lake residents who

require it. Kjerulf suggested "that we show a little bit of flexibility in this matter" when he pitched the idea to the Pickle Lake Lions. "It is a ludicrous idea," replied Caul. " Our residents have jobs, and to spend a whole day away for a 20-minute appointment is just not reasonable." He also stated that the Sioux Lookout has optometrists, a clinic and a hospital, which eliminates the need for the eye van to be in larger centre if Pickle Lake residents are to travel there.

As for the idea that the number of patients doesn't call for the trip,

according to Caul, the scheduling for the eye van is always completely booked and "a large number of persons are asked to try again next year." The CNIB responded to the controversy by issuing a press release on March 15 entitled: CNIB Ontario Medical Mobile Eye Care Unit Visits Pickle Lake. It said the van could be in the community Aug. 14 and 15, in recognition of a request from the band council.

Sudbury-based Monique Pikington, CNIB unit program manager, said that a

misunderstanding took place, and that the unit would be going to Pickle Lake again this year. She suggested that anyone requiring its services contact either the health unit in the settlement or nursing station on the reserve.

While Chief Roundhead is happy that the CNIB is coming to Pickle Lake, he said that he and his council are offended that the organization "chose to make racist assumptions based on 'B' movie stereotypes about the conduct" of band members and he noted that he has yet to receive a letter of apology.

"At least five of our people need the service of the unit, " he said. "If contacted we certainly would have supported the CNIB in this very worthwhile venture."

"We've moved a long way from where this misunderstanding took place,"said Ann Cameron Orr, a Toronto-based CNIB communications consultant, who said that they had no formal connection the Lions, but that Euclid J. Herle, president and chief executive officer of the CNIB, had sent a general letter of apology to Ontario regional Chief Gordon B. Peters, "in case anybody was offended by something that was said." And she decried the racism of the ealier letter, while denying that the CNIB had anything to do with it.