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dam-l FW: note ref to Cross Lake suicides and hydro



Cross Lake reserve's suicide attempts taking no holiday
Teen rescued after trying to hang herself
Wed, Jan 12, 2000
Helen Fallding, Regional Reporter, Winnipeg Free Press, 13 Jan 2000

SUICIDE ATTEMPTS continued unabated in Cross Lake over the holidays. .
On Sunday, a 16-year-old girl was rescued after trying to hang herself a few
weeks after her younger sister was flown out of the Pimicikamak Cree Nation
following an overdose, said community wellness worker Bob Brightnose. "We're
trying to get her out for some help."
Seven residents in the community of 4,500 north of Lake Winnipeg killed
themselves last year -- a suicide rate 11 times the Manitoba average.
It's the second rash of suicides in the community following a similar crisis
in 1986-87.
Crisis line co-ordinator Verla Umpherville finally got a few days off after
a commitment of $40,000 from Health Canada's Medical Services Branch allowed
the line to hire more staff. The crisis line had been threatened with
closure just before Christmas until a delegation came to Winnipeg to plead
for more help.
More staff positions are still available, but local people with no training
are reluctant to apply. "A lot of people are intimidated by the suicide
calls, and I can't say I blame them," said Umpherville, who has studied
social work at university.
The funding covers wages for the next few months, but not utilities for the
crisis line, which operates out of a poorly insulated trailer beside the
RCMP dispatch office. Umpherville said staff have packed snow around the
trailer for insulation.
With a tiny bit of breathing room provided by the temporary funding,
community leaders are exploring longer-term solutions.
RCMP Sgt. Paul Currie said the crisis team will pull together information
this week on who is attempting suicide. In every one of the 144 suicide
attempts last year, the victim was under the influence of alcohol or drugs,
he said. "Substance abuse, of course, is the catalyst -- not the underlying
reason."
Cocaine has become increasingly available in Cross Lake, Umpherville said.
Suicides come in clusters because people close to someone who has committed
suicide do not know how to deal with their grief, she said.
Currie said most of the people attempting suicide seem to be in their 30s.
It's the same generation that was involved in the last suicide cluster at a
younger age, he said. "It seems like it's maybe going to go in cycles. If we
don't address the long term, it's simply going to return."
Health Canada is working with the first nation on longer-term funding
proposals, which will likely include applying to the Aboriginal Healing
Foundation set up to deal with residential school abuse.
Chief John Miswagon wrote Manitoba's chief medical examiner last week
requesting an inquest into last year's suicides. He drew a connection
between the suicides and the 1970s hydroelectric project on the Nelson River
that took people away from their hunting and fishing lifestyle.
Director Johanna Abbott at the medical examiner's office said the office is
working on a response.
Umpherville said the community is divided between people who have jobs,
money and stable families and those who live in despair with none of those
things. 
Unemployment in Cross Lake is estimated at about 85 per cent.

© 1999 Winnipeg Free Press. All Rights Reserved.