Honouring Jordan: Putting First Nations children first and funding fights second

This is Jordan’s story. Jordan was a First Nations boy from a northern Manitoba reserve who spent his entire life living in an institutional hospital setting until he succumbed to his illness at four years of age. He never had the opportunity to experience life in a loving family home environment, where the sights, senses and sounds of home would have provided him with the dignity, integrity and sense of belonging that he so deserved. The tragedy is that he did not have to stay in the hospital for medical reasons: he remained there for two years because government departments could not settle on which one would pay for his foster home care. Government needs came before Jordan’s needs. However important the jurisdictional dispute must have seemed to the government bureaucrats involved, it seems so small compared with Jordan’s sacrifice.