Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today my Member’s statement is on medical travel cancellations and the concerns that we are having in Nunakput. We all know how it feels when your flights are cancelled for whatever reason in the Northwest Territories. It happens a lot because of bad weather and mechanical problems. However, when medical travel is cancelled when the patient is in severe pain, it becomes a serious problem.
In February I asked questions in the House about how procedures and policies are used to evaluate whether the patient should be medevaced and I also expressed my concerns about the air carriers cancelling scheduled flights which include medical travel passengers. The Minister responded indicating that the airline has the right to cancel the flight due to lack of passengers that day. Whether the air carrier has the right or not is not the issue. The issue is the residents in the small remote communities should not have to wait for the medical appointments while their flights are being cancelled time after time, especially if the patient is in severe pain. Every resident of the Territory needs to have access to adequate and timely medical care.
A constituent told me of a situation when they had to wait due to a cancellation, because of lack of passengers for several hours. Later a chartered flight did land in that community, but they had no room for additional passengers.
In my communities there is only one air carrier. This community has the influence to coordinate other contracts such as medevac, medical travel, food mail, and postal service. So the airlines do not have to cancel flights due to lack of passengers.
Someone in the medical field needs to review the patients who have their travel cancelled, to reconsider or coordinate other travel arrangements such as medevacs. Other patients have serious medical problems. Expecting patients to wait for a full flight and good weather does not work in the small communities when you have flights in every other day in some communities that I represent.
I will have questions for the Minister of Health at the appropriate time.
Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
