Aamjiwnaang First Nation is planning to open a two-bed hospice for community members in need of end-of-life care.
Chief Chris Plain announced plans for the site during the inaugural Chamber of Commerce State of Sarnia-Lambton Business Breakfast.
"We're in the concept stage right now and we have concept drawings and council has approved those drawings to go out to engineering and then once we get that, we'll do the costing. Obviously, we'll have to take it to the community and get their endorsement but we feel that the community will be very supportive of this type of initiative."
Plain is hoping to bring the idea to the community in the summer and have the hospice complete within the 2022-2024 term.
"We don't anticipate the engineering to take too long with the concept drawings that we've provided, so we'll just go through our process and when our staff feel they're ready, we'll take it to the community."
Plain said the site will help open up a little more culturally appropriate type services for community members seeking end-of-life care.
"Hymn singing, drumming, all of those types of things which might not interfere with other people who are sharing the [Sarnia] hospice with us at the current time. We much appreciate that service up there but we feel that sometimes we can be a burden with the amount of people that we go up there to visit so we thought why not do that here?"
Plain said the project won't set the community back very far and that staff are working very hard to work with the team in Sarnia to get trained for this type of initiative.
"And we're looking forward to it because it's a service that our community has traditionally asked for, or long term care but financially that might not be an option at this particular time but we feel we can pull this off," said Plain. "Traditionally, First Nation people are connected to their community, and sometimes at that stage of life we recognize when we go to do home visits, people are saying 'I don't want to go to the hospital, I want to die at home.'"
Plain said Aamjiwnaang is starting to do more services for themselves. He said in his estimation, they're one of four First Nations in the province that generates revenue for the federal government.