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The federal government is sending nearly $24 million to Manitoba First Nations groups to transform health-care delivery and community-safety initiatives in northern communities.

Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu announced Friday that $23 million will be used by Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak Inc., and Keewatinohk Inniniw Minoayawin Inc. — the recently established northern First Nations-led health organization — to make systemic changes to the way First Nations residents access and receive services over the next two years.

As well, more than $715,000 will go to MKO over three years to enhance lawmaking capabilities on First Nations.

Earlier this year, Ottawa began transferring control of federal health programs, services and functions to the two organizations.

“Transformation is about deconstruction of colonial regimes and ideals that were prevalent in the health-care system,” MKO Grand Chief Garrison Settee said at the announcement.

“But we are on the verge of that transformation, and it begins with our people being involved, our leadership being involved… that has been the missing piece.”

MKO is a political advocacy organization representing 26 First Nations in the province. KIM (the full name means “Northern Peoples’ Wellness” in Cree) was established as a non-share corporation by the MKO Chiefs’ health task force in 2020.

KIM chief executive officer Dr. Barry Lavallee said a priority in the transformation is holding health-care providers and systems accountable when serving First Nations people and fulfilling what he said has been a decades-long ask from northern chiefs to adapt medical training to incorporate Indigenous teachings.

“Access to care has been important for First Nations people for decades,” he said. “So although you have nurses and doctors, you have CT scans, MRIs, you have operations occurring, the real analysis that you have to take is, ‘Does it meet the mark for First Nations people?’

“And in all my years of research and studying and practice, in 30 years, it never has.”

Hajdu said her experience running a homeless shelter in Thunder Bay prior to getting into politics exposed her to what she called the “cruelty of the health-care system,” particularly to Indigenous people.

“I think Indigenous people are too kind when they talk about these experiences…. As a federal representative, this kind of collaboration is not just critical, it’s immoral to not to do,” she said.

Like the health-care funding, the $715,000 community-safety money is also focused on advancing self-determination, Settee said, referring to “limitations” to policing that make it difficult for RCMP to enforce First Nations band bylaws.

The project has been in development for three years, he said, but resources had evaporated.

“What we’re wanting to do is to look at not relying on the system, but to create our own system within that community,” he said. “That is what autonomy looks like, and sovereignty looks like, and taking care of our own.”

Rural communities across Manitoba have long called for answers to a lack of mental-health support from the federal government.

While some new services have come through private donors — an initiative announced by the Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba this week to create eHeath programming for youth living in rural areas raised funds through the Sobeys Family of Support — crisis-intervention services aren’t reaching northern communities when they’re most needed.

After a string of suicides and suicide attempts, Island Lake First Nations called on the provincial and federal governments to work with them. A similar call was made in Red Sucker Lake First Nation, where a 16-year-old boy took his own life on a playground in October.

More autonomous health care in First Nations communities could help leadership address the root causes of mental health issues like suicidal ideation and addiction, Lavallee said.

“The immediacy of need for our communities, indeed, they’re there, but we have to redefine what health looks like in terms of prevention,” he said.

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca