By Matt Fetinko

Safety messages getting across as Fort St. James, surrounding First Nations continue COVID crisis

Dec 19, 2020 | 9:41 PM

FORT ST. JAMES — “We knew about it and you watched it in other areas but it wasn’t here; in our opinion, it wasn’t here. It is here now.”

Concern continues to be seen in Fort St. James and its two neighbouring First Nations reserves. COVID-19 numbers continue to climb in Northern BC. As such, Mayor Bob Motion says people in the area are getting the message loud and clear.

“It’s here. We have to believe that everybody you run into could be a carrier [of COVID-19] and deal with them accordingly,” Motion said.

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“Looking around the community, you can see that more people are staying home, there are not as many people out and about, not as many people driving around,” continued Nak’azdli Whut’en Chief Aileen Prince.

“We’ve asked people not to come into the community unless it is absolutely necessary and for essential services.”

A December 18 bulletin from Northern Health outlines 108 laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID in the central and northern portions of the Nechako Health Area including 33 from December 9th to 15th. More than half of those 108 are considered active.

Recently, the BC Emergency Health Services’ Rapid Response Team was deployed for two, four-day shifts supporting local healthcare workers. More than 100 calls were assisted with during that time.

“The big problem is the announced 60 COVID cases in the community and that’s a number that Northern Health wouldn’t release. The following day… Northern Health corrected it by issuing a number of 40,” explained Motion, frustrated at the time but ultimately thankful for the help.

“At the time I was taken aback because we went from zero to 100 instantly. Everyone and their dog in the province knew that Fort St. James had a crisis. Our crisis really was in the ambulance service department where they could not keep up with the transfers of patients here. We run very thin on Northern Health staffing in the hospital here. So there is very little capacity for access… so that was the support they needed and the end result is that the community received that support, so we thank them.”

That support will continue until December 24, as BCEHS is supplying an ambulance and other equipment to continue helping with the high volume of calls still being received and transferring patients into other hospitals for more specialized care than what is available locally.

Communication also seems to be improving, a positive sign for the cluster of communities. Chief Prince said, “we have at least weekly meetings and we are getting updates from [the First Nations Health Authority], Northern Health, the clinic here; our health manager is part of the EOC Team so we have a lot of communication going out.”