Nunavut seniors continue to suffer far from home, say MLAs

MLA for Rankin Inlet North and Chesterfield Inlet Tom Sammurtok asks, June 2 in Nunavut’s legislature, when a long-term care centre will be opened for seniors in the Kivalliq region. (PHOTO BY BETH BROWN)

MLA for Rankin Inlet South Alexander Sammurtok asks the premier and health minister why Nunavut seniors are still sent out of the territory for long-term care. (PHOTO BY BETH BROWN)

Nunavut MLAs want to know why the territory doesn’t keep, and care for, its elders at home and the answer from both the premier and the health minister was as simple as it was troubling: they don’t have the money.

Premier Peter Taptuna and Health Minister George Hickes were responding June 2 to questions from two Kivalliq MLAs—Alexander Sammurtok of Rankin Inlet South and Tom Sammurtok of Rankin Inlet North-Chesterfield Inlet.

Alex Sammurtok asked during question period why providing care to seniors in Nunavut is taking so long.

“Needs have already been identified,” he said. “If it is truly the case that elders are the backbone [of Nunavut society], then can the premier explain why elders are still being sent… away from their families, children and grandchildren, for long-term residential care?”

Taptuna said it all comes down to money, including work to negotiate the new Canada Health Accord and Canada Health Transfers. He said while some funds are set-aside for seniors, “it’s not enough to get some of these things on the move. It’s a very small amounts of money.”

With cuts to Canada Health Transfers at about $60 billion over 10 years nationally, “you can see why it’s very difficult to get any kind of infrastructure and program money,” Taptuna said.

“We [have] been pushing to try to figure out ways to get more budget on that,” Taptuna said, adding that he recognizes smaller communities are especially lacking in elder support.

“We want to try to maintain our elders within Nunavut, but we do have to ensure that they’re well taken care of and at this point we don’t have the facilities.”

He said even members of his own family, his wife’s aunt, who just turned 103, cannot be cared for in her home of Kugluktuk.

“We still have to continually ship our elders down south for that specialized care,” he said.

Taptuna cited a seven-bed facility that recently opened in a wing of the regional health care centre in Cambridge Bay as progress and added the Government of Nunavut continues to look for existing spaces where residential senior support can be increased.

He suggested people in the communities write their MLAs and the GN “to ensure that we stay on top of that.”

Tom Sammurtok wondered if there would be efforts to build a care facility in the Kivalliq region. He said there are at least seven seniors from Rankin who have had to leave the community for care.

“It’s evident that we need a long-term care facility,” he said.

A 2015 report by the GN on continuing care estimates that there will be four times as many people over the age of 80 in Nunavut by 2035.

Thanks to independent efforts, a new elders care facility that offers a higher level of care than the existing one is on track to open in Iqaluit in December, according to project leader and Iqaluit-Niaqunnguu MLA Pat Angnakak.

And, the GN has set aside money to expand the senior care centre in Igloolik. There is already a similar 10–bed continuing care facility in Gjoa Haven and two lower level care centres in Baker Lake and Arviat.

When it comes to placement in a care centre, home care is always a first option, said Hickes.

“As a last resort we do send people out of territory, through contract, on a case-by-case basis,” said Hickes. The GN is currently looking to contract a more stable number of long-term care beds out of territory, he said.

“As our aging population or our demographic of our aging population continues to increase, this is something our long-term and continuing care division constantly looks at and evaluates,” said Hickes.

For some Nunavummiut, solutions can’t come quickly enough.

In January, former NWT MLA Manitok Thompson decried the level of care for unilingual elders sent to care homes in Ottawa.