How constant water shortages compromise health care in Quebec's Nunavik region

Even if they're surrounded by vast bodies of water as far as the eye can see, residents of Quebec's Far North lack a reliable water supply.

Not only does this impact citizens' health through the spread of diseases, but it weakens the quality of care and forces health workers to get creative in order to help their patients.

The Inuulitsivik Health Centre, located in Puvirnituq, serves seven communities running up the coast of Hudson Bay. The facility regularly lacks water, according to Dr. Vincent Rochette-Coulombe, who is starting his third year as a doctor in the community.

This lack of water has a direct impact on patients, he said. He gives the example of a chest drain, which requires inserting a tube into a hole created between two ribs.

"You don't have water to wash your hands. The glove broke, and you wash your hands with Purell," he said. "It doesn't make any sense. It takes basic hygiene measures, and sometimes, we're not able to accomplish them."

Raphaelle Durand, a nurse at the Inukjuak health clinic, or CLSC, has a similar, equally painful story.

"We found ourselves, the team of two nurses and a doctor, covered in blood and secretions," she said.

"It takes running water to wash ourselves, to be able to avoid transmitting diseases to other patients. This time, we washed our hands with bottles of water."

Her colleague Luce Bugeaud Tremblay, who is new to nursing in the North, is shocked at the number of bottles of sterile water that get used.

"It's very expensive, but we use them excessively because if we don't have water, we don't have any choice but to use that," she said.

Water is needed for all kinds of health services, from dentistry to childbirth. Margaret Mina, who has been a midwife at the Inukjuak CLSC for 20 years, is faced with the challenge of a waterless childbirth on a regular basis.

Just last summer, the CLSC ran out of water for two weeks.

"[The women] are bloody when they give birth. We always have to wash them, and when there's no water it's impossible and it's disgusting," she said. "We have to use water bottles."

Mina says the water shortages mean new mothers don't wash their hands often enough when they bring their babies home, leading to more viruses for both mothers and children.