News/Canada/Thunder Bay

The chief of Neskantaga First Nation is calling on the federal government to quickly help set up a mobile health centre in the remote community due to flooding that has closed its nursing station.Chief Gary Quisses and the northwestern Ontario community's council declared a state of emergency on Sunday after health-care staff noticed water seeping from the walls and a strong smell of fuel.The First Nation, where fewer than 400 people live about 450 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay, has also been under Canada's longest boil-water advisory for 30 years."It's our lifeline, our nursing station," Quisses said during a virtual news conference on Tuesday. "I don't have [a] proper medical facility in the community right now. We have a small interim place, but that's not good enough."The tempora...

Multiple pharmacists linked to a south Thunder Bay, Ont., pharmacy face an additional set of misconduct allegations by the profession's provincial regulator, including falsifying records.One pharmacist also faces allegations of taking or misappropriating drugs from the shop on Victoria Avenue. Fort William Medical Pharmacy and two pharmacists were already under the Ontario College of Pharmacists' (OCP) scrutiny for allegations of misconduct that allegedly occurred between roughly January 2023 and May 2023. Jaspreet Sahota and Chi (Hao) Luu are facing professional misconduct hearings related to those allegations referred to the college in 2024. They include breaking federal narcotic law and dispensing prescriptions without valid authorization, according to the hearing info on the OCP public...

Patrick Cully wasn't sure his daughter Scarlet would ever be able to say, "I love you."But she's now talking, thanks to applied behaviour analysis (ABA) therapy in Thunder Bay, Ont., where the four-year-old lives with her parents, and a $190,000 grant the family says they received under Jordan's Principle, a program run by Indigenous Services Canada (ISC).Last week, however, the family's request for continued federal coverage — amounting to $217,650 — was denied. Without the therapy, her parents fear she could become non-verbal again.Scarlet, who has autism and has experienced severe speech delays, and her family are members of Batchewana First Nation, an Ojibway community east of Sault Ste. Marie.Until recently, she had been receiving different therapies five times a week, including speec...

Community support worker Kyle Arnold says detoxing from drugs is one of the hardest things he's ever done, but seeing dozens of members of Long Lake #58 First Nation going through withdrawal together in a safe space "is absolutely beautiful."Long Lake #58 is an Ojibway community about 300 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay, Ont. On Friday, 42 of its members arrived at the NorWester Hotel and Conference Centre — which is partially owned by the First Nation — to participate in a 10-day detox program.The community has booked more than 50 hotel rooms, where participants receive on-site medical and social support and hourly room checks, as they go through withdrawal from alcohol or drugs and prepare for a full treatment program. "Generally when people go into a detox … it's with strangers. Thi...

WARNING: This story contains references to suicide.Robert Williamson says he remembers watching his parents lose their only source of income as his neighbours started to get sick.Now, he's sick, too, but his hope is that his grandchildren won't suffer the same symptoms he does.Williamson, like roughly 90 per cent of residents in Grassy Narrows First Nation, has been impacted by mercury poisoning that dates back to the 1960s and '70s, when the Dryden Paper Mill dumped about nine tonnes of the toxin into the English-Wabigoon River System in northwestern Ontario.Drummers gather for the groundbreaking ceremony of the long-awaited Mercury Care Home in Grassy Narrows First Nation in northwestern Ontario, on Wednesday. (Sarah Law/CBC)On Wednesday, he joined fellow mercury sufferers in a groundbre...