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A chief from the Assembly of First Nations says the delay in getting hand sanitizers during the recent outbreak of H1N1 is symptomatic of a bigger problem in aboriginal communities: poverty.

Regional Chief Angus Toulouse, who holds the portfolio for health, said that as the outbreak spread through the North, it became clear that measures aimed at containing the virus were ill-suited to the social realities of First Nations communities.

"They tell us to avoid contact with others if you're sick. But we have situations where there are 15 people in two or three families in a home, sharing this home. It's pretty hard to avoid contact," he told CTV's Canada AM on Wednesday.

"The other suggestion is: wash your hands on a regular basis. But when we don't have running water, it's pretty difficult to do these things," he said.

"We still have TB prevalent in our communities. These are Third World kind of conditions that create these situations. And they're still a problem," he said.

Toulouse noted that while the federal government has developed the Canadian Pandemic Influenza Plan, no investments have been made into guidelines that federal, provincial and territorial governments should follow when addressing outbreaks in First Nations communities.

"The minister (of health) keeps repeating that $1 billion was spent on planning. But what they didn't do was talk to First Nations communities about how they're going to deal with the situation when it arises," Toulouse said.

"We need to address our specific issues in this plan. It makes more sense if we're a part of developing the plan than not having a plan at all."

He says that as H1N1 spread, First Nations communities witnessed delays in receiving urgently needed medical supplies, and a lack of consistency in managing the outbreaks between the provinces.

Toulouse's comments come as First Nations leaders in Manitoba slam federal health officials for delaying the shipment of hand sanitizers to reserves because the products contained alcohol.

The senior public health adviser for the Assembly of First Nations, Dr. Kim Barker told a Senate committee Wednesday that valuable time was wasted during the early days of the H1N1 outbreak as officials debated whether to send alcohol-based hand sanitizers to the communities.

Public health officials, the First Nations and Inuit Health Branch and chiefs reportedly discussed the sanitizer issue and whether it would be appropriate to send the disinfectants to communities battling alcohol addiction.

"We heard that people were sitting down spending days discussing the pros and cons of a non-alcohol-based hand sanitizer versus an alcohol-based one because of the concerns around addictions in these communities," Barker told the committee.

She called the debate "absolutely outrageous, quite frankly. ... I quickly pointed out that it's just as easy to get a bottle of Lysol in these communities as anything else. So to think that people are going to be purchasing Purell to become intoxicated, that's quite an outrageous leap to make."

Chief David Harper, of the Garden Hill First Nation in Manitoba, said he had such a discussion about alcohol-based sanitizers with his councillors, and they believed they had legitimate concerns. So, they found an alternative product.

"The people who are in charge of health were made aware that there is a product available that is non-alcohol based, and we have purchased some of that," he told Â鶹ӰÊÓ Channel.

Health officials finally brought 2,500 alcohol-based hand sanitizers to Garden Hill, weeks after the outbreak began. But Harper says health officials in Ottawa didn't seem to hear their concerns.

"The problem is that any decisions that are made in Ottawa are often not referred to us, at the reserve level," he said. "We knew there was a concern (about alcohol-based hand sanitizers), and that there was a way to address that concern."

The AFN is asking for an independent task force to study what happened in St. Theresa Point, Garden Hill First Nation, and other First Nations communities hit hardest by H1N1.

They want a report with suggested improvements to be completed before the flu season returns in the fall.