Manitoba leaders may sue over cuts to health care

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Manitoba Native leaders are threatening to sue the provincial and federal governments if any Natives die as a result of cutbacks to health care funding.

Chief Harold Turner of the Swampy Cree Tribal Council said every Native death due to cuts in health care would cost both levels of government.

"If there are no beds available, it's pretty easy to prove," he said.

Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs Grand Chief Phil Fontaine said his organization wants to see that both levels of government are held accountable.

"What we would do is a strategic intervention," he said. "I don't know if we could sue for every case but that is the position advocated the chiefs in the North."

The thousands of dollars in health care cuts, initiated Premier Gary Filmon's Conservative government over the last two years, will likely result in a loss of essential services to isolated Native communities, Fontaine said.

Although newly appointed Health Minister Jim McCrea has already suspended some of the cut backs, including those in Thompson and the Pas, the end result is that Native people are going to get hurt because hospital beds are closing.

"The province has embarked on a very mean-spirited initiative," he said.

A drop in health care services in the north will also result in nurses and other health care workers losing jobs and a decline in the number of hospitals, Fontaine said.

"It so happens that there are only two communities in the north that have hospitals close so if there is less beds in Thompson, people there will be forced to go to the Pas. And they're closing those down so you end up going to Winnipeg and there are bed closures there too, so the people in the north are faced with a pretty serious situation."

The province did not consider the special needs of Aboriginal peoples when the cuts were made, Fontaine said. There are several northern communities that have thousands of people and no regular physician.

"All they have is these nursing stations," he said. "Every single woman who has to give birth has to be flown out."