Members of remote Ontario First Nation appeal for cancer facility

Members of a northwestern Ontario First Nation have made a plea to the province’s cancer care elite for help to remote communities that consider the disease a death sentence.

Cat Lake First Nation Chief Russell Wesley said his community northwest of Sioux Lookout has seen 11 cancer-related deaths in recent years and members are unable to get proper screening and treatment.

Ontario Regional Chief Isadore Day introduced the Cat Lake members at an event at a Toronto hotel on Sept. 10 launching the third tier of Cancer Care Ontario’s Aboriginal cancer strategy.

Community member Joyce Wesley told the crowd of leaders from medical and Indigenous communities that there is a desperate need for a cancer facility in Sioux Lookout to benefit 26 communities that must currently travel to Hamilton or Toronto for healthcare.

“In Ontario there are two different worlds: drive-in reserves and remote communities,” she said.

“(In remote communities), once you’re diagnosed with cancer, it’s a death sentence for you.”

Wesley said she believes people are getting sick in part because of chemicals in the environment from forestry work.

Alethea Kewayosh, Cancer Care Ontario’s director of Aboriginal cancer control, said fixing cancer care in remote communities is a process, and that a separate plan is being customized for the province’s northwest.

She said the agency is working with other cancer care agencies and trying to improve screening, education, prevention and palliative and supportive care.

Kewayosh said environmental concerns are rampant in Ontario’s remote communities, which is why Cancer Care Ontario plans to put more of a focus on research.

“We’re very much aware of the unique needs of our communities up north,” she said.

“I’m very committed to seeing what we can do to address those gaps but it’s not going to happen overnight.”

Chief Day said it scares him that northwestern communities consider cancer a death sentence and is hopeful the problem can start being resolved.

“We all have a part in this,” he said.