Chief Tammy Cook-Searson would like to see dialysis machines brought to northern Saskatchewan. (Derek Cornet/larongeNOW Staff)

By Derek Cornet

looking forward

Hope and the Future: Wellness centre set to open in 2021

Dec 28, 2020 | 8:00 AM

The COVID-19 pandemic makes 2020 a year many may prefer to forget but there is hope for the future. We’ve decided to make that the focus of our series of end-of-year stories.

Challenging times pull people together and makes them stronger individuals and community members.

Those are the words of Lac La Ronge Indian Band (LLRIB) Chief Tammy Cook-Searson, who said 2020 was a difficult year that nobody had experienced before. She explained although the holiday season will be much different this month, people will be more grateful for simple acts like gathering together as a family for a meal when coronavirus restrictions are lifted.

“We are really looking forward to the vaccine rollout in the New Year and how that will look,” Cook-Searson said. “We have hope to be able to get together as family in the coming year. Those thing we do take for granted does get difficult, but as I said, we do get stronger.”

One project tri-community residents and northerners can look forward to is the opening of the wellness, treatment and recovery centre in October 2021. It will include 24 beds for in-patient care, an indoor sweat lodge and meat preparation area. Cook-Searson noted the construction of mini-lodges in all six LLRIB communities for out-patient care should also start this summer.

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In 2021, the band will begin looking to corporations for sponsorship in order to pay for final opening costs. She added some businesses have already reached out to the band asking how they can help.

“It’s really taking shape and that wouldn’t have been made possible without the support of the community, without the support of the federal government, the provincial government and the band,” Cook-Searson said.

Cook-Searson is hopeful the LLRIB Treaty Six Agricultural Benefit claim, also known as Cows and Plows, will be validated next year. She mentioned the claim was made in October 2018 and it usually takes three years to be validated. Once the claim is validated, then the band can enter negotiations with the federal government for a settlement.

In the New Year, Cook-Searson also explained the band has a meeting arranged with Fort QuApelle File Hills Qu’Appelle Tribal Council Chief Edmund Bellegarde to determine how his community was able to successfully work with the provincial government to bring dialysis machines to that region. Cook-Searson said there are many northerners who use such services and they shouldn’t have to travel so far from home.

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derek.cornet@jpbg.ca

Twitter: @saskjourno