As tourists flock to Montreal for F1 race, Cree dialysis patients who fled fires are on the move again

When wildfires threatened Jack Otter's community of Waswanipi, Que., and heavy smoke filled the air, the Cree Nation evacuated overnight. He is one of dozens of patients who came to downtown Montreal to continue his dialysis treatment.

But after spending a week at the Hotel Espresso, 800 kilometres from home, he was told he had to pack his bags once more — this time to make way for tourists renting rooms for the Canadian Grand Prix.

Otter said he refused to be moved and the hotel should have been prepared to accommodate the evacuees, but 20 other Cree dialysis patients like him were transferred to a floor in the Hôtel Dieu, a space that operated as a homeless shelter during the COVID-19 pandemic. Other patients were sent to a facility in Terrebonne, 50 kilometres north of Montreal.

In a statement, the Cree Board of Health and Social Services of James Bay called the patient transfer an "an extraordinary situation of emergency." Faced with a lack of accommodation in which to provide necessary care, the board turned to the Red Cross to find alternative facilities for the Cree patients.

"We bring our clients on a daily basis, and unfortunately the fires up north increased the number of clients," said Helen Bélanger, director of Wiichihituwin, an organization that helps Indigenous patients outside Montreal get health services in the city.

Wiichihituwin sets up around 45,000 health appointments per year in Montreal and has had an agreement with the hotel for several years, with 120 rooms there.

But Bélanger says she has never seen so many patients flown to Montreal for treatment.

"We had 85 hemodialysis patients, which is really a high number. We are used to having around 35 patients hemodialysis in Montreal," she said.

"This increase of course wasn't calculated because usually we prepare for the F1 and we are aware that there's a lot of clients, tourists here in Montreal. Unfortunately, we needed to have the support of the Red Cross," she said.

And being repeatedly displaced is beginning to take its toll.

"There's been a lot of changes and a lot of drama," said Otter, adding that it has been especially exhausting for the elders.

"Some of them were pretty sad, especially the elders that are being placed at the Hôtel Dieu," said Otter. "They were kinda tired. They had to wait in the lobby for the whole day to be placed."

Billy Neeposh also came to get dialysis in Montreal and was staying at the hotel. He said the patients were first told they were going to change rooms and then had to wait in the lobby for a long time before being moved out.

Louis Blacksmith came to Montreal as a volunteer to help patients like Otter. He translates and helps his fellow members of the Cree Nations get around. Being separated is hard on the patients, he said.

Bélanger said the board is working with SOPFEU, the province's forest fire prevention agency,  to make sure their vulnerable patients can return home when it's safe.

CBC asked Hotel Espresso for comment but did not receive a response by press time.

As of Friday evening, rooms were still available on the hotel's website starting at $540 a night.