Young Nunavut cancer patient’s family didn’t know he was covered

The family of William Pothier, four, will get some help from the Government of Nunavut’s Extended Health Benefits program. (FILE PHOTO)

The family of an Iqaluit child stricken with leukemia is no longer as stressed about money as they once were.

William Pothier, four, is covered under Nunavut’s policy for long-term medical treatment unavailable in the territory.

On May 21 – a day after readers of Nunatsiaq Online learned of William’s plight – William’s mother, Martine Dupont, found out William qualifies for the Government of Nunavut’s Extended Health Benefits program.

“I’m thrilled,” said Dupont. “The GN stepped up to help to be sure that we won’t be left out and falling through the cracks.”

Nunatsiaq News did not find out until after its press-time for its May 28 print edition.

The Extended Health Benefits program is for Nunavummiut suffering serious illnesses and who require long-term care that Nunavut can’t provide.

The program pays daily allowances for accommodations and food for each day that William and one escorting parent stay in Montreal while he receives chemotherapy there.

The program also covers the cost of any drugs William needs and ground travel to and from Ste-Justine Hospital.

Most importantly for his family’s finances, it will also completely pay for air travel for William and an escort.

Dupont had earlier said that the co-payments her family would have to pay for government-subsidized medical travel would have run into the thousands of dollars.

William still needs another month of intensive, daily chemotherapy treatments unavailable at Qikiqtani General Hospital in Iqaluit.

After that’s done he’ll need weekly treatments, also of a kind unavailable in Nunavut.

But in February 2011, William may be able to return to Iqaluit and receive low-level chemotherapy at Qikiqtani General.

Hospital staff in Iqaluit and Montreal and Nunavut’s Department of Health and Social Services are still working out on whether Iqaluit has the specialized personnel and equipment necessary to treat William.

One of William’s doctors filed an application for Extended Health Benefits earlier this month and sent it to the GN via Canada Post.

It took roughly two weeks for Martine to get a response from the GN’s health office in Rankin Inlet about her son’s coverage under a program she had not been aware of.

The Pothier family aren’t the only people in Nunavut who are unaware of the Extended Health Benefits program,

In September 2009 a popular outcry arose when long-term Nunavut reverend Mike Gardener got a $34,000 bill for his stay at Larga Baffin patient residence in Ottawa.

Gardener had been acting as medical escort to his wife for eight months and had not applied for Extended Health Benefits, though his situation was eligible.

The GN later paid his bill.

The Extended Health Benefits policy can be downloaded at http://www.gov.nu.ca/policies/ehb.pdf.