New Emergency First Response Team to enhance care in Wapekeka First Nation

A team of community-led and trained emergency first responders will now be paid and equipped to manage urgent medical situations within Wapekeka First Nation until professional care arrives.

The new Emergency First Response Team (EFRT) program will provide the community with nonstop care by offering essential medical equipment, a patient transport vehicle and additional support from Ornge, Ontario’s provider of air ambulance and critical care transport services.

It will also support records management and data collection, offer up-to-date services and tailor training to be culturally relevant and hands-on for those living in remote and northern communities, according to a media release issued on Wednesday.

“This is an important development for Wapekeka,” Chief Brennan Sainnawap was quoted in the release.

“By leading our own emergency response efforts, we are taking meaningful action to protect the health and well-being of our people.”

The program is not the first aimed at advancing health equity in the region.

Jeffrey Gunner, Ornge’s director of Emergency First Response Teams and a member of Moose Cree First Nation, was Weeneebayko Area Health Authority’s director of paramedicine for several years before he began to aid in building the EFRT program at the beginning of 2025.

Before the EFRT program began, he explained that there was a program that he believed was run for about 30 years by the Ministry of Health through Lake of the Woods District Hospital in Kenora.

“They would go into the communities and train first response teams. It was all volunteer-based. So some of the teams, they would stay up and running for a long period of time, depending on if they had somebody in (the) community kind of driving the program,” Gunner said.

While quite a few teams ended up not running anymore, Gunner said they’re looking to build on the success of that program and the Ministry of Health has also put some more funding behind it.

He said the goal is for it is to be Indigenous-led and supported by Ornge.

“They’re basically enhanced first aid and CPR-trained first responders and when I say enhanced, their role in the community will be to respond to emergencies and bring the patient to the clinic. They’ll also have a role to bring (patients) from (the) clinic to the airport,” Gunner said.

Ornge’s responsibility will be training and oversight, Gunner added.

With Ornge having done many transfers out of remote First Nations communities, he explained that they’re looking to provide a safe way to transport patients to and from the airport to the clinic, so first responders will be trained how to use a stretcher, drive a vehicle and deliver patients.

“Our goal is to have the communities to be self-sufficient eventually. We would love to have someone in the community (who) is able to train the trainer, so to speak,” Gunner said.

“… Right now, a lot of communities don’t have that type of training in (the) community. So Ornge is providing the support and having the instructors, we’re hiring them directly at Ornge and they’ll be going into the communities to provide that training.”

Gunner added that they will also provide the community with a truck, stretchers and all equipment and supplies, including AEDs.

As a First Nations person, he said, it’s important that the community itself can provide this service.

“We’re hoping to expand to other First Nations communities that would like this program as well. So we do have a lot of interest, we’re hoping to set this up as quickly as we can in as many communities that want it,” Gunner said. – tbnewswatch.com

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Great. Why did this not happen 10 or 20 years ago?

OK, now do the same for carpenters, mechanics, electrician, plumbers s etc.  Make the FN communities responsible for the maintenance of their own community.  Have fully trained and certified  tradespeople living in the community.  Paid to maintain the facilities and houses.

Then have the residents build their homes.  Pretty soon you have a fully functioning  town. Imagine that.

What difference could this have mad had this type of self reliance begun two decades ago?