Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - March 16, 2022, Winnipeg, Manitoba ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COMB2 WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 2022 C M Y K PAGE B2 NEWS MANITOBA’S health system is pre- pared to ramp up yet again should COVID-19 hospitalizations spike after public health measures were eliminat- ed Tuesday, Health Minister Audrey Gordon promised. A seven-page document detailing the province’s COVID-19 health system re- covery plan was published by Shared Health on Tuesday. “While Manitoba moves into the next phase of pandemic management, with recommendations replacing require- ments and public health restrictions, it is anticipated that COVID-19 activity will increase and hospital admissions and ICU admissions may also rise,” the document states. The plan says health system indica- tors, including sur- veillance testing, hospitalizations and intensive care unit admissions, are being “closely monitored to inform decisions in the event of a surge in COVID-19 activity.” The plan supports the incremental ex- pansion of the prov- ince’s critical-care bed base, prioritizes staff for rede- ployment, facilitates the addition of medicine beds and notes inter-regional patient transfers will continue to maxi- mize capacity. “This is for scaling up or scaling back,” Gordon told reporters when asked how the plan aligned with the government’s decision to lift all public health orders. “Right now, we contin- ue to decommission beds, we continue to demobilize staff back to their home programs. “We will continue in that downward trend for the foreseeable future so long as the numbers continue to support that. The plan does not call for Manito- ba to return to its pre-pandemic inten- sive-care unit bed base. Rather, the province will staff 87 adult ICU beds and 23 cardiac ICU beds, which is an increase of 18 beds. As many as 120 nurses will be able to complete critical care nursing ori- entation programs annually to sup- port the expanded bed base, the plan notes. Significant expansion of critical-care beds will continue to be supported by redeploying staff. A five- to seven-day lead time is required to expand the bed base by six to 10 beds. “Each phase will redeploy or reas- sign staff from an identified area, re- sulting in a corresponding decrease to activity and services as workforce shifts occur,” the plan states. “Criteria have been clinically determined to es- tablish appropriate prioritization and provincial standardization of services impacted and the sequence by which they are reduced.” In a news release issued late Tues- day, Gordon said all but 235 staff had returned to regular duties as of March 10 and surgical capacity is expected to return to pre-pandemic levels within the next month. The final phase towards returning to pre-pandemic surgical volumes will depend on “operational readiness and ongoing monitoring of health system indicators,” the plan states. Inter-regional patient transfers will continue and may increase as weather improves to address congestion and free up beds at higher-acuity hospi- tals. “Planning is actively underway to determine the post pandemic medicine bed map as well as to align medicine capacity with the newly expanded ICU bed base. Staffing and resource re- quirements are being identified with recruitment and training requirements a core component of this planning work,” the plan states. NDP health critic Uzoma Asagwara said the plan shows the health care system does not have the capacity to provide timely care close to home as restrictions are lifted. “That’s a direct result of cuts made before the pandemic, it’s a direct re- sult of poor decision making by this government during the pandemic, in- cluding on going cuts,” Asagwara said. “A huge concern that I have is the on- going crisis of staffing in our health care system, and how our health-care workers are going to be expected to continue to time and time again be working when they’re basically run- ning on fumes.” As of early Tuesday, 410 people with COVID-19 were in hospital, including 18 in intensive care. danielle.dasilva@freepress.mb.ca Health system ready if cases spike: minister DANIELLE DA SILVA AN attempt by out-of-province crime groups to muscle into the city’s illicit drug trade led to a “concerning” uptick in gun violence last fall, police say. Subsequent investigations by the Winnipeg Police Service guns and gangs unit — initially based on intelli- gence provided by other, larger police agencies — resulted in five arrests and the seizure of large quantities of meth- amphetamine, fentanyl and cocaine. Beginning in September, separate drug networks — one from Alberta/B.C. and another from the Toronto area — attempted to quickly take control of pieces of the local market, the WPS organized crime unit commander said Tuesday. “People were coming into the city and essentially using force, they were using violence to try and sell these drugs,” Insp. Elton Hall told reporters at police headquarters. “What I mean by that is they had handguns, they were coming in and shooting their way into the city for lack of a better word, and trying to estab- lish themselves — they were bulldozing their way into the city.” That “immediate violence” was be- tween existing Winnipeg gangs and out- of-province rivals, including drive-by shootings, vehicle chases and shootouts — gunplay not often seen in the city, Hall said. “When violence does occur and things do happen, the guns and gangs unit usu- ally finds out pretty quickly and we can usually mediate or arrest our way out of it or talk to individuals in the commu- nity to try and hash out the issues and problems,” he said. “In this particular case, this type of violence where you’re just shooting out of car windows… Obviously, now you have issues of innocent people being hit or random discharges going on in the city.” Hall said the group from the Toronto area was the one “causing problems,” while the network from the west dis- persed once investigators got involved. The first arrests came Nov. 29. Investigators reported a commercial truck delivering a large shipment of drugs at Deacon’s Corner to the east of Winnipeg, police said. Officers stopped a vehicle and arrested one man, seizing 15 kilograms of methamphetamine, two kg of fentanyl and one kg of cocaine. City police executed a search warrant on the 800 block of Sterling Lyon Way, seizing four kg of meth and 77 grams of fentanyl, and arrested one man. Brandon police later arrested the driver of the commercial tractor trail- er and seized the vehicle. A search of the truck located 0.5 kg of fentanyl and $40,000 in cash; Hall said the trucking company not involved. On Feb. 24, the guns and gangs unit executed three warrants: one each on the 700 block of Corydon Avenue, the 100 block of University Crescent, and the 300 block of Salteaux Crescent. Nine kg of meth, eight ounces of fen- tanyl and nearly $100,000 in cash were seized. Officers arrested two men. Hall said the bust was significant for two reasons. “Looking at the bigger picture here, you have a health crisis in Winnipeg right now and across Canada, so you have a large amount of drugs taken off the street, which again alleviates issues that some of our emergency rooms, hospital staff, doctors, nurses etc. (deal with),” he said. The second was the correlated uptick in gang activity and gun violence. Curtis Sugira Ndatirwa, 23, and Na- than Britton Kelly, 26, both of Winni- peg; Marcu Remington Burt, 25, and Tushar Thaman, 20, both of Edmonton; and 24-year-old Manveer Singh of Sur- rey, B.C., have been charged with drug trafficking and proceeds of crime of- fences. All were detained in custody. “Whatever group this is, the arm is dismantled for the time being,” Hall told the Free Press. erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @erik_pindera Winnipeg drug busts have out-of-province connection: police ERIK PINDERA Insp. Elton Hall shows off confiscated drugs Advocates press province for return of international student insurance M ANITOBA wants to attract the best and the brightest, but is prepared to send big medical bills to international students strug- gling financially who get sick and fall through the cracks, critics say. A GoFundMe campaign of behalf of Calvin Lugalambi raised $56,567 — less than half the $120,000 he owes Shared Health after a trip to the ER for a stomach issue ended in surgery and later catching COVID-19. However, the civil engineering stu- dent from Uganda considers himself lucky. Tevin Obi- ga of Kenya spent nearly two months in intensive care at St. Boniface Hospital after contracting a blastomycosis infection in his lungs. He died March 3. His family was then billed more than $550,000 by Manitoba’s health-care system. Critics say the province needs to reinstate health coverage for interna- tional students that was scrapped in 2018. The province says international students are required to obtain med- ical coverage when they register for school in Manitoba. Lugalambi said the problem occurs if there is a gap. In his case, he was between preparatory courses and starting university in Winnipeg when his medical coverage lapsed. Others may be struggling far from home and can’t make ends meet. “All of a sudden, people are fac- ing some challenges that they them- selves cannot navigate,” Lugalambi said Tuesday. “So some of them have to opt out of school and, if you opt out of school, you don’t have medical coverage — even if you’re working to make ends meet.” When such people most need help, they’re scared to seek it because they’re not insured, he said. “So they avoid going to the doctor’s just because they know they’re going to get put in a hospital bed. It’s going to charge them so-many-thousand dollars. It’s really appalling and very sad.” On Tuesday, the Manitoba Liberals called on the Progressive Conserva- tive government to reinstate health insurance for students from abroad. The Liberals said the program cost more than $3 million a year — how- ever, it saved money in the long run, with students knowing they’re cov- ered and seeking health care rather than putting it off for fear of incur- ring a huge medical bill while an un- treated illness gets worse. Asked if the province would con- sider reinstating health insurance for international students, Immigration Minister Jon Reyes balked. “I refuse to answer that question,” he said in a scrum with reporters. When pressed, Reyes said students are required to purchase health- care coverage when they register at post-secondary institutions. “We’re not going to meddle with that. We’re not in the insurance business.” An argument for reinstatement: it’s a good investment in skilled workers more inclined to stay in Manitoba once they’re established, said Uche Nwanko, co-ordinator of AfriCans of Winnipeg South. “Early diagnosis, early treatment can save a lot,” said the agricultural economist from Nigeria, who tried to advocate for Obiga and Lugalambi — and is currently trying to help anoth- er international student in Victoria Hospital facing a huge bill. “What the government seems not to appreciate is that internation- al students contribute a lot to our economy,” said Nwanko. “They pay exorbitant school fees compared to domestic students. They bring mon- ey and they bring diversity and when they finish, they become part of our economy. “Tevin Obiga was a computer en- gineering student. If Tevin was alive and finished his studies, he could’ve contributed millions to this econo- my.” Nwanko said the bills sent to Obi- ga’s family — $517,764 from St. Bon- iface Hospital, $1,405.55 from Victo- ria, $28,254 from Grace Hospital and $2,872.52 for doctor appointments and treatment — is “ridiculous.” The young man’s single mother needs help raising the $20,000 to re- patriate his remains to Kenya. The advocate helped her obtain a visa so she could get to Winnipeg to be at her son’s bedside before he died. Brett Carter, who helped raise money for Lugalambi’s medical ex- penses, said he can’t understand why the province cut a vital program. “Health coverage is the least we could do to help international stu- dents contribute to our province and country in a meaningful way, he said.” carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca CAROL SANDERS RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Calvin Lugalambi, an international student from Uganda at the U of M, owes $120,000 to Shared Health after a trip to the ER. Tevin Obiga Audrey Gordon INDIGENOUS leaders in Winnipeg have a pitch to recruit more First Na- tions, Métis and Inuit people to become teachers. The Winnipeg Indigenous Executive Circle will release a report today that outlines a severe under-representation of Indigenous educators in the city, the limited school division and university demographic data available, and a list of calls to action to address both. “The current system isn’t working,” said Heather McCormick, of the group’s education committee, who co-authored the State of Equity in Education report. “On average, the University of Win- nipeg and University of Manitoba com- bined graduate 35 Indigenous students per year. Based on that, it would take 20 years to develop enough (classroom representation).” The 32-page report is the second of its kind. The group released the inaugural review — which is not unlike an edu- cation equity report card for K-12 and post-secondary learning institutions — in October 2020. Drawing on 2013-14 provincial survey data, WIEC estimated in its 2020 report that 570 more educators must be hired in public schools in order for there to be an equitable and proportionate number of Indigenous teachers for the number of Indigenous students in Winnipeg Those nearly decade-old figures indi- cate just under 17 per cent of the stu- dent population self-identified as Indig- enous at the time. Sheniel Nasekapow, 18, described feeling “isolated” and “unwanted” when she was the only Indigenous student in her early high school career at John Taylor Collegiate. Nasekapow recalled several uncom- fortable situations when classroom dis- cussions about residential schools and Indigenous culture put her on the spot. The high schooler said there was a shift when she transferred to Chil- dren of the Earth High School, which is where she met her first Indigenous teacher — an experience that made her want to become an educator. “I want to teach younger students… It would mean a lot to me if they saw an Indigenous teacher in the classroom, a young role model to them,” added Nasekapow, who is enrolled in Build From Within, a teacher development program run by the Winnipeg School Division, University of Winnipeg, and Indspire Canada. Members of WIEC acknowledge there are many initiatives that aim to graduate more Indigenous teachers, but the collective has a concrete proposal to scale up graduation numbers. The Strategy would first involve the creation of a one-year job training pro- gram with work placement experience and mentorship opportunities for 100 participants every year for five years to become “community teacher service workers.” The Centre for Aboriginal Human Re- source Development would oversee this program and target Indigenous parents and adult learning centre participants interested in a career in education. Community teacher service worker graduates would then be laddered into a new bachelor of education in Indige- nous knowledges program operated by the Neeginan College of Applied Tech- nology. WIEC’s pitch is to secure feder- al funding for living allowances and tu- ition so participants can study full-time in the hopes the community college can graduate as many as 125 teachers over nine years. In addition, Neeginan would launch an educational assistant laddering pro- gram to the new bachelor degree so there is a pathway for Indigenous school support staff to become teachers. maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca Plan devised to recruit Indigenous teachers MAGGIE MACINTOSH LOCAL JOURNALISM INITIATIVE REPORTER B_02_Mar-16-22_FP_01.indd 2 2022-03-15 10:03 PM ;