CT scan, ambulance jet slated for Iqaluit: GN

The Government of Nunavut says it has taken “immediate action” to improve medical care across the territory, acting on recommendations from the coroner’s inquest held this past April into the circumstances around the 2009 death of an Iqaluit woman.

Elisapee Michael, 52, fell head-first down the stairs outside the Nova Inn on Aug. 9, 2009. Less than a week later, after being transferred from the Qikiqtani General Hospital to an RCMP cell and finally to Ottawa for medical treatment, Michael died from head injuries.

Recommendations from that inquest, required because Michael had spent time in detention prior to her death, include keeping a designated aircraft for medevacs in Iqaluit at all times.

The GN says that a Learjet is now based in Iqaluit, along with a team of medical staff, to transport critically ill patients to Ottawa within its intensive care unit.

In response to another recommendation from the inquest, the GN says it is in the process of buying a CT scanner, which uses a medical imaging method to diagnose internal injuries.

The scanner — which costs up to $2 million — should be in operation by March 2012.

The GN is also reviewing its “infrastructure and financial resources” to set up a territorial-wide addictions treatment program.

This may lead to renewed action on setting up treatment centres in Nunavut, plans that went nowhere earlier this year after the GN put requests for proposals for addictions treatment centres in Iqaluit and Cambridge Bay on hold.

Speaking at the legislative assembly June 6, health and social services minister Tagak Curley said the government accepts and agrees to all of the 29 recommendations that jurors at the coroner’s inquest presented to the City of Iqaluit, the RCMP, Qikiqtani General Hospital and the GN this past April.

“I want to assure Nunavummiut that my department will continue to work closely with the RCMP to improve communication and quality medical care,” Curley said.

Protocol for when the RCMP is called to assist with hospital patients has also been clarified, said a June 6 GN news release, and improvements to staff training have been made.

Four days before her death, Michael fell down the front stairs outside Iqaluit’s Nova Inn and was taken to the hospital to be treated for a head injury. Medical staff there had called the RMCP to take her into custody.

Police put Michael in a cell where, hours later, they discovered that she was unresponsive.

Michael was then medevaced to Ottawa, where she died Aug. 13 from her head injury.

Because Michael spent time in detention prior to her death, the inquest into her death was mandatory.

The Department of Health and Social Services said then that it had already implemented many changes as a result of a review held prior to the inquest.

See the inquest’s other recommendations .