Staggering mental health, addiction stats push northern First Nations to call for emergency declaration

Chiefs of First Nations in northern Ontario are calling for a public emergency and social crisis to be declared, emphasizing the disproportionate mental health and addictions issues facing their communities compared to the rest of the province.

The Sioux Lookout First Nations Health Authority's (SLFNHA) held its two-day annual general meeting last week. It serves 33 First Nations — 28 of them are considered remote as they have no highway access.

Those who attended the meeting in Thunder Bay heard jarring preliminary figures from a report on mental health and substance use that's underway in the communities. The figures show band members are hospitalized for mental health and addictions issues at six times the provincial rate.

From 2011 to 2021, emergency department visits for intentional self-injury nearly doubled and ambulatory visits in the communities tripled.

Chiefs at the meeting passed a resolution to direct the SLFNHA to:

The steering committee involved in SLFNHA's mental health report has been listening to stories from community members to integrate Indigenous knowledge into its findings, Dr. Lloyd Douglas, SLFNHA's public health physician, told CBC News.

"When you hear the storytellers sharing their experiences, you quickly realize that each statistic, each number, is a person, is a mom, is a dad, is an aunt, an uncle, a cousin," Douglas said. "This is not something that's historical — this is extremely current."

While much of the data gathered goes up to 2021, he suspects the numbers have worsened since then.

It's hoped the final report will be completed by November, in time to be presented at a special meeting of chiefs. The goal of the report is to provide First Nations people with quantitative evidence that can be used to push for more resources.

"It will validate their stories," Douglas said. "Their voices will be amplified through this report."

Several new projects have been implemented in Sioux Lookout, which acts as a hub for surrounding First Nations to access health care and social services to meet people's mental health and addictions needs.

These include the opening of safe rooms at the Meno Ya Win Health Centre, a new walk-in addictions clinic at both the hospital and emergency shelter, and new supportive treatment beds. SLFNHA also purchased a third hostel this spring to help accommodate some of the thousands of people who go to the town for medical appointments.

"From the perspective of a co-ordinated continuum of care, it's important to have a suite of services," said Sonia Isaac-Mann, the SLFNHA's chief executive officer and president.  

"Those wraparound services that are needed so [they] don't just go into treatment — there's more to it than that, and it's looking at: how do we support them on their journey to healing and wellness?" she said.