Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I’m going to speak about an issue that continues to hang over the Health Minister and this government. At issue is the status of the City Centre Airport in Edmonton. The runway that had instrumentation which allows for flights to land in bad weather has been closed. To my knowledge there is now only one runway available at that airport. If you’re a medevac patient or a family member of a patient, you had better hope that the weather is good enough to land.
The fact is that the weather does not always cooperate and medevac flights from our Territory carrying our residents to services in Edmonton have been diverted to the International Airport. Just recently there have been at least three such diversions. In one case the patient being medevacced had to wait two hours at the International Airport for ground ambulance to arrive and then another 30 minutes in transit to an emergency room in the city. Is this what the Minister had in mind when she told this House that she had a plan?
The problem is this Minister has been invisible in the debate to close the City Centre Airport. She has not written one letter identifying the concerns of the public of the Northwest Territories which she represents. If the Minister is not going to defend our residents, then who will? How long will medevac patients from the Northwest Territories be at the mercy of Mother Nature? Where is the plan for services and a transition to using the International Airport? Are we just going to let Alberta dictate what is going to happen? Who exactly is our voice in these discussions?
Medevac flights are often life and death situations where time plays a huge factor in the outcome patients can expect. Where are our residents being housed while waiting for ground transport by ambulance? Are they waiting in the plane? Are they waiting on the tarmac? Are they waiting in a hallway? Perhaps they’re even waiting in the pilots lounge.
The bottom line is we need to make sure our residents are getting to Edmonton with a plan in place that will get them the services they need as quickly as possible.
I will have questions for the Minister of Health at the appropriate time.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
