PEHDZEH KI/WRIGLEY - About two-thirds of Wrigley's population have had varying degrees of flu symptoms within the past three weeks, according to Darcy Moses, the Pehdzeh Ki band manager.

Although most patients have shown improvement, a few cases have become far more severe.

"It's still here and a few people have developed pneumonia. Three people so far have gone from flu to pneumonia," said Moses.

Those three were medevaced to Fort Simpson for treatment.

Despite these cases, Moses said he thinks there are fewer people with the flu in the community.

"I think it's actually a bit less because I think the kids are rebounding."

The outbreak coincided with the death of a Fort Simpson man, sparking fears of an H1N1 outbreak after health officials released information indicating the man may have died from swine flu. An examination later revealed swine flu was not the cause of death.

Moses said most people in the community do not believe H1N1 is the cause of the rising number of illnesses in the community. However, residents in Wrigley have yet to be tested for H1N1 due to the community not having full-time medical staff.

"They send a nurse once a month," said Moses.

The nurse arrived in Wrigley on Sept. 21.

"We were told that nurses are hard to come by in the NWT and I can empathize with the health centre in Simpson and people who work with NWT health because there are restraints fiscally as well," he continued.

Moses said those who have a potentially fatal disease that requires immediate attention must spend tow hours waiting and flying to Fort Simpson from Wrigley, or four hours waiting and flying out of Wrigley to Yellowknife.

He added it is impossible to drive out during the nighttime when the ferry is closed.

Kathy Tsetso, the chief executive officer of the Dehcho Health and Social Services Authority, said nursing staff can sometimes be hard to come by.

"It goes in spurts. Sometimes we are very successful in the recruitment of nursing," said Tsetso, though she said staff can come and go, as well as take vacation, leaving vacancies in some of the larger communities.

"We do move nurses around from our other communities to cover if we can't get backfill nursing from the south or from somewhere else. If we can't get backfill then our schedule (for sending nurses around the region) is disrupted," said Tsetso.

Tsetso said nurse visits to Wrigley last around three days, and every week the nurses on rotation visit a new community.

The communities also get monthly visits from physicians, usually coinciding with a nurse's visit, said Tsetso.

"Now we haven't had full time physicians for many years," she said.

"We've been quite fortunate to have locum coverage and consistent locum coverage - the same pool of physicians coming in and out. Usually they're there for up to two months at a time, so that gives us some consistency."

Moses said though he understands the health authority's position, it would be nice to have at least a few visits per month. He said there have been situations where deaths may have been avoided if the community had had some full-time health care workers in place, given the travel time to get them to treatment.

"God help the community if anything near fatal happens," said Moses.