Marsi, MP McLeod. Thank you for the question.
I'd like to share with you, as I often do, a specific example. In October of 2020, we had a 75-year-old elder who truly lived a subsistence lifestyle in our territory. He found himself very ill at his remote camp in the Mackenzie Delta region. His family requested a medevac via helicopter, as this was during the fall freeze and the only means of transportation.
The local community health centre in Fort McPherson is operated by the NWT Health and Social Services Authority, and was the main point of contact for the family. The RCMP had also been engaged to assist. The family was advised that an extraction via helicopter may cost $20,000 to $30,000, for which they would be responsible. Recognizing the personal emergency and the apparent lack of affordable options, the family reached out to the Gwich'in Tribal Council for assistance. As we are a shareholder in a helicopter business in Inuvik called Gwich'in Helicopters, we dispatched a helicopter to extract the individual.
He then received the initial assessment of his condition at Inuvik Regional Hospital. He had a lung infection, an inflamed liver and a heart condition. X-rays that were taken revealed two masses that required further assessment. Two days later, he was taken by medevac to Yellowknife, and then eventually to Edmonton to receive further care.
All told, the helicopter extraction cost us a grand total of $2,215. However, it took an intervention by us as an indigenous government to make this happen. The charge was eventually reimbursed by the NWT Health and Social Services Authority two months later. To add insult to injury, when seeking travel to meet the patient as an escort, his sister was denied medical travel from Inuvik to assist and advocate for her brother. As a result, the family was required to pay for a one-way ticket from Inuvik to Edmonton at a cost of approximately $700, plus accommodations.
After the bureaucratic process of submitting multiple letters from an approved physician to the NWT Health and Social Services Authority, all of which were denied, a separate request was made directly to the NIHB program, by a social worker the family was in contact with, which then approved the hotels and meals five days after the helicopter dispatch.
Sadly, the patient in care passed away about a week later from cancer. NIHB required that the patient's sister return home on the following Saturday, two days after the elder's death. Arrangements with the funeral home to respect the patient's wishes for cremation were required. However, due to COVID-19, the funeral home was limited in its ability to respond quickly.
The family wanted their loved one cremated with his remains transported back to Inuvik, followed by a two-hour drive on the Dempster Highway to Fort McPherson. Once again, the GTC was required to intervene, cover the costs of accommodation and allow time for the family's wishes to be respected. Repeated requests to the NWT Health and Social Services Authority were denied due to a lack of disclosure of a reason for the patient's condition in the many letters that were submitted. The physician was limited in what they could include in the letter due to health information disclosure requirements. Thus, the request was caught in the conundrum of a catch-22 situation.
I see this as a prime example of why medevac situations, where you do have a patient that is suffering from a severe condition, should be automatically provided with a medical travel escort that would follow soon after, as many of these individuals are unable to actually travel in the medevac with the patient themselves.