NHL Healthcare Heroes - Melanie MacKinnon

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a rapidly changing healthcare environment, with planning and preparation focused in all areas of the health system on being able to identify and respond to outbreaks quickly, regardless of where they occur. In Manitoba, with many rural and remote communities separated by vast distances and with access limited to air, water or ice road, rapid response has required a whole new level of teamwork and coordination.
That's where the First Nations Pandemic Response Coordination Team (PRCT) comes in. With representatives from the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakinak, First Nations Health and Social Secretariat of Manitoba, Keewationohk Inniniw Minoayawin and the University of Manitoba Rady Faculty of Health Sciences Ongomiizwin Health Services, the team supports data and surveillance information that allows for the rapid identification of outbreak situations in Manitoba First Nation communities.

In the early days of COVID-19, in anticipation that a need would exist for rapid surge response to communities in need of support, the PRCT activated Pandemic Rapid Response Teams. Coordinated through Ongomiizwin Health Services and led by Melanie MacKinnon, the organization's Executive Director, the Rapid Response Teams are made up of various health care professionals (doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, and many others) with close connections to Manitoba's First Nations Communities.
"With multiple jurisdictions responsible for health care, COVID has required us to collaborate in a way we have never collaborated before, by looking at how we could build capacity with resources already here and working with the various partner organizations," says MacKinnon. "We have leveraged every personal and professional relationship we have, to build the biggest suspension bridge to reconcile any jurisdictional gaps in real time."
Rapid Response Teams are deployed quickly, often within 24-48 hours of support being requested. Response levels vary according to the needs of the community, ranging from the delivery of rapid testing equipment and several days of training to the arrival of a full team of health care workers to support the local health workforce and community leadership, often for several weeks. The data and surveillance work, best in class in the country, has allowed for quick identification of cases or an outbreak situation in a community, with every situation needing a unique response.
MacKinnon is quick to credit partners and the leadership of each community and the local pandemic response teams, with the success of efforts to contain and manage outbreaks during Manitoba's second wave.
"Unlike a larger community, it doesn't take much for critical community infrastructure to be impacted if individuals in key roles become infected or are required to isolate. In most successful deployments, our team supplements the existing community resources and works under the leadership of the local clinical team and with the broader community. Our team is an asset but we cannot stand alone without that community support system."
Through the fall of 2020 and into early 2021, more than twenty communities have made the request for support from the Rapid Response Teams. The teams' ability to bring rapid testing equipment, train local staff, set up testing sites and support contact tracing and isolation for those exposed to the virus, has proven extremely valuable in helping local pandemic response teams manage outbreaks in their communities, in a respectful and culturally appropriate manner.
"We all come from community, either because that is where our families are from or because we have spent our careers working in Indigenous communities or with one of the partner organizations," says MacKinnon. "From my experience, the arrival of the rapid response team has been met by a sense of relief and gratitude that help has arrived."
"We saw what happened in 2009 with H1N1 and we knew our response to COVID-19 needed to be different. This time, we were going to lead and bridge systems, we were going to be prepared, we were going to act quickly, and we were going to send professionals when help was needed."