Quebec to bolster medevac air fleet in response to coroner’s report
Death of Salluit woman sparks change in Nunavik’s medical evacuation system
A Quebec coroner’s report has prompted the ministry of health to bolster its medevac air and staff resources. (Photo by Cedric Gallant)
Quebec’s health ministry is moving to improve its medical evacuation services in response to a Quebec coroner report on the death of Kitty Kumakaluk, who waited six hours for hospital transport out of Puvirnituq two years ago.
Kumakaluk died of acute pneumonia on Aug. 11, 2022, at Puvirnituq’s Inuulitsivik Health Centre.
In the report, released Aug. 14, coroner Julie-Kim Godin highlighted that the six-hour delay for Kumakaluk’s medical evacuation could have been avoided.
She offered two recommendations to the ministry: ensure the availability of qualified staff and aerial transport in sufficient numbers; and put in place, within six months, a call centre that would manage and prioritize requests for medevac flights.
Quebec’s ministry of health was given 45 days to respond to the report after its release.
Francis Martel, a media relations officer for the ministry, said in an email to Nunatsiaq News that work on fleet enhancement is underway.
The ministry has purchased a used Bombardier Challenger medevac aircraft and is working to procure two more of these planes to renew the province’s fleet.
Martel also pointed to the creation of a co-ordination centre to “optimize the selection of available resources” of planes and staff. This new centre will work with other existing centres that help co-ordinate use of intensive care beds, air evacuations, and care for children and babies within the province.
To bring in more staff, Martel said the provincial government has had a plan in place since 2023 that includes a goal to “establish standards of care and training for personnel involved in aeromedical transfers.
“Work has begun on this initiative.”
The University Hospital of Quebec has also been mandated with the creation of a call centre dedicated to aerial transport. Martel said the call centre could be up and running sometime in 2025-26.
“This centre aims to co-ordinate inter-regional transfers as a priority, but also to offer support for transfers that are within regions, in collaboration with them,” he said.
“Clinicians will be encouraged to contact this centre very early on in the management of patients.”
Having this resource, Martel said, “could have made a huge difference in the situation described in the report.”
I had a stoke waited 14 hours for airplane
When my boy was getting medevac we waited 2 days when I complain they said changing aircraft bed.