Former Nunavut health minister condemns medical travel glitches

Paul Okalik says four patients recently bumped off Ottawa flight north

By STEVE DUCHARME

After talking to four medical patients stranded in Ottawa after getting bumped from a flight, Iqaluit-Sinaa MLA Paul Okalik wants the GN to look into its medical travel contracts with airlines. (FILE PHOTO)


After talking to four medical patients stranded in Ottawa after getting bumped from a flight, Iqaluit-Sinaa MLA Paul Okalik wants the GN to look into its medical travel contracts with airlines. (FILE PHOTO)

An MLA questioned the effectiveness of the Government of Nunavut’s medical contract with codeshare airlines First Air and Canadian North May 30 at Nunavut’s legislative assembly.

The Iqaluit-Sinaa MLA — and former minister of health — Paul Okalik demanded a review of the contract before it’s set to expire later this year.

Okalik asked Health Minister Monica Ell-Kanayuk commit to researching the number of bumped medical patients being abandoned at airport terminals.

“This month I was in Ottawa and I also went to see a family member who was a patient and my relative was supposed to be leaving the next day going on First Air,” Okalik told Ell-Kanayuk during question period.

But Okalik said when he arrived at the Ottawa International Airport, his relative, along with three other patients, had been bumped off their scheduled medical flight.

“We were very sorry to see the patient not leave. Her relatives were expecting her to come home that day, and she was not the only elder that was affected,” Okalik continued.

“Some other elder patients did not leave Ottawa, and their medication had left already. There I went to meet one patient but I ended up seeing four patients at the time.”

Okalik, who blames those flight delays on the controversial codeshare deal between the two airlines, asked Ell-Kanayuk how many patients had been “negatively effected” by the unpopular policy.

According to the legislature’s unofficial transcript, which had an incomplete English translation, Ell-Kanayuk seems to suggest that the codeshare isn’t the culprit.
Instead, the minister suggested Okalik direct the complaints to the government’s public relation’s office, as per the policy — a policy, she pointed out, that Okalik must have been aware of during his time as health minister before resigning in March.

“…It would be better to provide that complaint to the public relations office. In not knowing this on a personal level for medical travel I can’t really speak to the transportation challenges they face,” she said.

But Ell-Kanayuk did confirm the GN’s medical contract with the airlines is currently under review, and said she would add Okalik’s suggestion into the scope of that investigation.

“The contract is near completion. Yes, we can look at it thoroughly, not just for medical travel,” she said.

“We have been looking for ways for patients being treated closer to home rather then sending patients out of their community. We are now reviewing this part and we can also include that part in our review.”

The GN’s medical contract with the airlines is set to expire in 2016.

Okalik said last year — when he still held the health portfolio —that the government would seek new airlines to partner with once the contract expires.

Complaints of botched medical transit have persisted since the airlines first established their codeshare scheme in 2015, after a failed merger between First Air, Canadian North and Calm Air.

At a special full-caucus televised hearing in January, airline executives defended their codeshare policy as necessary to combat high operating costs.

“Running an airline is expensive everywhere, but nowhere near as expensive as here,” First Air President and CEO Brock Friesen told MLAs at that meeting Jan. 26.

Nunavut’s legislative assembly’s brief spring sitting is expected to continue until June 8.

Share This Story

(0) Comments