Nunavut health department spends $74M on medical travel: annual report

If you are curious about what the Government of Nunavut’s health department is up to, take a look at its annual report, which you can download at assembly.nu.ca in the tabled documents section.

If you want to know where the Government of Nunavut spends its money, you don’t need to look any further than to the health department.

Figures on what the GN spends on medical travel are among the interesting tidbits contained in the health department’s annual report for 2016-17, tabled Sept. 14 in the Nunavut Legislature.

Within the health department, medical travel continues to be the largest non-salary program to be managed by the department.

In 2016-17 the department spent about $74 million, which amounts to about $2,400 for every Nunavut resident during that year.

This big amount went to cover the expenses for roughly 32,000 round trips booked across the territory during the year for clients who need to access health services not available in their home communities, the report said.

The department’s medical travel unit manages contracts with Canadian North, First Air and Calm Air for scheduled airline services to those eligible for medical, client or duty travel. Those contracts are set to expire in August 2019.

In 2016-17, the unit also arranged 2,012 one-way medevac trips, with the department’s travel unit managing contracts with Keewatin Air and Aqsaqniq Air for medevacs.

The health department’s annual report also lists the main issues of complaints submitted to the department by clients or their guardians and family members.

Medical travel along with escorts for medical travel, inadequate assessment, and attitude and conduct issues were among the top subjects of the 130 complaints received by the GN’s Office of Patient Relations.

Between April 2016 and April 2017, the Office of Patient Relations received about 130 complaints: 40 from Iqaluit, 35 from the Qikiqtaaluk region, 32 from the Kivalliq region, and 23 from the Kitikmeot region.