Infants and young children suffering from mysterious skin lesions and sores are the new face of the public health emergency facing Canada’s aboriginal communities.
Authorities have had to hospitalize children from the Kashechewan First Nation in northern Ontario after pictures of their sore-stricken faces and bodies went viral on social media.
“The pictures of those children were so shocking and so heartbreaking that it woke Canadians up across the country,” said Charlie Angus, the indigenous affairs critic for the New Democratic Party (NDP) and the member of parliament for the area.
“They were saying ‘what the hell is happening in our country that children are getting sick like this?’ These children really are the face of a much larger systemic crisis that is facing northern First Nation communities.”
Children evacuated
Some children in Kashechewan First Nation have developed rashes and even painful sores on their bodies. Tasheena Wesley
Three children have been evacuated from the community while another 13 are expected to be removed by officials for further examination and possible treatment, Angus said during a conference call with federal health officials and aboriginal leaders on Monday.
The children are expected to be transported out of the community by Tuesday.
The federal government is also planning to send doctors into the community to conduct door-to-door visits and determine if other children are developing similar symptoms, a government official said Monday.
“What the physicians are doing is trying to do some supplementary follow-up work by visiting the homes with the community health workers to see if there’s other children they have missed or are there certain prevailing health conditions that might contribute to skin conditions,” said Keith Conn, an acting assistant deputy minister for regional operations in the Health Department’s First Nations and Inuit branch.
“This is the face of the medical crisis hitting Treaty 9,” he said in a Twitter post on Friday, after former Kashechewan chief Derek Stephen posted unsettling pictures of his infant niece covered in lesions.
Questions about water
Federal Health Minister Jane Philpott said the outbreak of skin lesions among children in Kashechewan is not the result of the community’s water, as some have suggested.
“The water has been tested as recently as last Tuesday and we know that it meets all of the appropriate standards for safety in drinking water and for water to be used for other purposes,” Philpott said Monday.
She would not give any specifics about the case, but said that one possible cause of the lesions is an infectious condition.
Nishnawbe Aski Nation Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler said the water issue can be ruled out.
“I think if you spoke with a council member of a community member from Kash they would tell you differently. What we hear today is that community members are to the point now where they don’t trust the water coming from their taps to even bathe or do their laundry, so I think there’s a real need for an independent and outside assessment and inspection of their water system.”
With files from The Canadian Press and CBC News
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