Lack of local transport leaves Nunavut man in wheelchair stranded

Violetta Charlie is supposed to escort her husband to a medical appointment at the end of June, but she’s already worried about how they’ll make it there.

Charlie’s husband, David Jayko, has been disabled since 2015, the combined result of a vehicle accident and damaged knee joints. The 61-year-old does not have use of his legs or arms and uses a wheelchair to get around.

Jayko has regular medical appointments in Edmonton, but getting to them has become a headache for his family.

That’s because the Taloyoak couple doesn’t own a car, so the otherwise simple task of getting to the airport is a major challenge.

There is no taxi service in Taloyoak, nor does the community have an ambulance or adapted transit options available through its health centre.

“Just to get a ride to the airport is a real struggle,” Charlie said. “Every time we leave town, this is a problem. It’s too stressful.”

Through a loose agreement with Taloyoak’s home care services, a nurse or assistant has agreed to take Jayko to and from the airport on occasion. But it’s never been guaranteed, Charlie said.

The only way to get Jayko to the airport is in a car, Charlie explained, as the seats are less high than in a pickup truck. Transferring the man from his wheelchair to the car takes the help of two or three people, she added.

But during Jayko’s last medical trip in early April, when Charlie escorted her husband to Edmonton, she said the couple had to argue with home care workers to get a ride to the airport.

When they returned home April 9, they were told a janitor would pick them up, though no one from the centre was there to meet them when they arrived.

“At this point, we don’t want to go anymore, it’s too much bother,” Charlie said.

“I have to fight and make phone calls just to get a 10-minute ride. No one seems to know whose responsibility it is.”

Charlie has complained to the health centre and local hamlet office, whose senior administrative officer sent a series of emails to the Department of Health in April.

“This is another case of the Taloyoak Health Centre not even trying to meet the needs of this community,” SAO Grant Scott wrote to a number of health officials in an April 1 email.

“The health centre knows what Mr. Jayko is capable and not capable to do, given his medical condition, yet they turn their backs on him.”

In an emailed response, a director of health programs for the Kitikmeot region acknowledged the lack of transport for people living with mobility issues in many Nunavut communities.

But the Department of Health does not provide any non-emergency medical ground transportation in communities, the health official explained, because it is not an insured service.

In Taloyoak, home care nurses and other health care staff are not insured to drive community members.

Clients are responsible for arranging transportation to the health centre or airport for approved medical travel, the Department of Health said in an email to Nunatsiaq News.

Non-emergency transportation to the airport for approved medical travel is covered by Non-Insured Health Benefits for eligible Nunavut Inuit in only four communities: Coral Harbour, Whale Cove, Arctic Bay and Resolute Bay, where the distance to the airport is considered exceptional (more than six kilometres.)

And in some cases, the NIHB or the GN’s Extended Health Benefits program could cover emergency inter-facility transfers from the health centre to the medevac plane, though that has not been the case for the Jayko family.

Noah Papatsie with the Nunavummi Disabilities Makinnasuaqtiit Society said transportation for Nunavummiut with disability issues is sorely lacking across the territory, and it’s a gap he believes should be filled by the GN.

Iqaluit, his home community, is large enough that its health services offers transport to elders and other residents living with reduced mobility.

“But in other communities it’s hard—they are all having the same problem,” Papatsie said.

“We need to communicate those needs. There should be a better system and we should have better access.”

Charlie said since she has complained to the Department of Health, officials have at least tried to find solutions for the family.

She was told the department could ask her to sign a waiver that would absolve the GN’s responsibility should anything happen during transport to the airport.

“I’m willing to do that because we have absolutely no other option,” Charlie said.

“We’re having discussions now; we’re talking about it, but we should have had this conversation a long time ago,” she said. “It’s just really hard for a disabled person living in a small community.”