Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I also have questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services regarding the Edmonton Municipal Airport closure. I have questions of detail regarding the closure and the routing medevac flights through the International. I have been informed that the original deeding of airport lands to the municipality was made with a caveat that the lands could not be used other than as an airport. Since the issue of the municipality’s discretion to make this change is fundamental to this issue, will the Minister direct staff to confirm whether in fact this was the case? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Miltenberger.
Yes, Mr. Speaker.
Thanks to the Minister. I appreciate that he does feel the same way as many of our colleagues do about this issue. I’ll look forward to that response. I won’t ask when, but I’m hoping he can do that as soon as possible, given the urgency of this issue.
Timeliness of patient transfer and treatment is obviously the core concern in this issue and I’m sure many Members here have been told of cases where minutes have made the difference in their personal survival and those of their family members. In fact, in the last three hours, Mr. Speaker, I’ve a spoken to two individuals who say they would not be here today if the Municipal Airport had not been available. Can the Minister say what definite information is in hand now regarding the impact transfer of the medevac routing will have on wait times for patient treatment after arrival?
We know that there’s added time to travel, that in some cases now we will need possibly additional fuel. We will have to look at alternate landing sites. We have to look at the recommendations of the report that was just released, to assess some of those recommendations. I’m sure they have potential financial impacts. We’re going to look at those, as well.
The bottom line is, there are decisions that have been made in Alberta by the Government in Alberta, by the City of Edmonton, that are within their jurisdiction and authority. They have made those. Now our responsibility is to collectively work together with them and other stakeholders to make sure that we have the best system that’s possible as a result of those decisions.
I’m certain that nobody here is a stranger to that 30 minute trip into Edmonton from the International Airport. Many of us have probably experienced the fog conditions, the snowstorm conditions, this sort of thing. Can the Minister say whether the report he’s had on this takes into account the impact of those sorts of conditions?
There are recommendations, for example, of specific sites that are going to be dedicated to medevacs being loaded and unloaded, the recommendation that they somehow synchronize all the streetlights going into Edmonton into the hospital so that when a medevac is on the way it can just be green lighted all the way down. There are those type of recommendations that are there, very specific, that have to be looked at once again by the City of Edmonton and by Alberta Health Services. Of course, we will be there to ensure and encourage them to take every effort to implement all those things that are going to make the process as expeditious and timely as possible.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks for those comments from the Minister. I’d like to just confirm, I appreciate that the Minister is taking a close look at the report that’s been done, doing an analysis with respect to the NWT specifically. Would the Minister provide the results of his analysis of this report NWT-specific comments to us, to the committee?
We would be happy to share the results of that evaluation. We’ll do it through the Social Programs committee.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
