Too many aboriginal people are being treated poorly, according to First Nations leaders in Canada’s Manitoba Province.

Case in point? Brian Sinclair, a double amputee found dead in his wheelchair after spending 34 hours waiting in a hospital emergency room in 2008. A Manitoba judge ruled today that the province must pay for his family’s legal counsel at an inquest.

But within hours, First Nations chiefs held a news conference to demand an inquiry into health care for aboriginal people overall, the CBC reports here (Story has videos.)

Brian Sinclair

The Southern Chiefs Organization has heard 49 recent complaints about quality of health care in the past nine months, Grand Chief Morris Swan-Shannacappo told a news conference Tuesday.

Some who spoke up complained of inadequate care, he said. Others said they were sent away from clinics or hospitals without being allowed to see a doctor or nurse….

Swan-Shannacappo said the inquest will be toothless because there will be no findings of fault by the presiding judge. Under provincial law, an inquest can only make recommendations about how to prevent similar deaths.

Swan-Shannacappo says that investigation should be like the aboriginal justice inquirery called after the 1988 murder of an aboriginal woman and a police-involved shooting of an aboriginal man. That probe resulted in recommendations on how to improve the ways aboriginal people are treated within the justice system.

The inquiry “didn’t say, ‘let’s fix things for these aboriginal people overnight.’ he says. “What they said is, ‘let’s go around to each community and we will start collecting all the data — all the horrific stories, and from there we can see how we can work together.”

Gwen Florio

Tags: aboriginal, Brian Sinclair, buffalo post, First Nations, Manitoba, Native American news, Southern Chiefs organization