GN medical travel office moves back to Iqaluit

The Nunavut legislature kicked off its March 4 sitting with an announcement from Health Minister Tagak Curley, who said the Government of Nunavut’s medical travel office for the Baffin region will move back to Iqaluit from Pangnirtung on April 1.

The three employees who now work with medical travel in Pangnirtung will remain with the Government of Nunavut, working either in Pangnirtung or Iqaluit, if they chose to move, Curley said.

MLAs thumped their desks in approval after Curley said the GN had “listened to Nunavummiut and will once again be providing medical travel support for all of the Baffin region through the medical travel staff located in Iqaluit.”

Medical travel services for Qikiqtaaluk residents travelling to Iqaluit for medical treatment have been provided from Pangnirtung’s regional medical travel services office since 2006 — at the same time as incessant complaints about poor service started piling up.

In 2006, Levi Barnabas, then the MLA for Quttiktuq, askedLeona Aglukkaq, then the health minister, why some constituents on medical travel “sometimes have to wait a day or two, up to a week” to get home.

“If they are going to be constantly left behind, it’s obvious that it will cost more for that individual and for the government. What are the minister’s plans in regard to this?”

After that, other MLAs, including James Arvaluk of Tunnuniq, complained of numerous glitches afecting travelling patients, and demanded that the office be moved back to Iqaluit.

In the legislature this week, Curley admitted that “despite efforts to address issues of technology, communication and logistics, we continued to receive complaints.”

Last summer, the health department undertook a review of the overall effectiveness the Pangirtung medical travel office.

Community leaders and medical travel clients in 11 Baffin communities strongly supported a “centralization” of the office to Iqaluit, Curley said.

However, Pangnirtung MLA Adamee Komoartok said he opposed any loss of GN jobs in Pangnirtung.