N.W.T. MLAs press for shorter medical flights for seniors

Members of the Northwest Territories legislature say seniors are being put on long, indirect medical travel flights to Edmonton, and they want the government to change its exemption rules.

Frame Lake MLA Julian Morse told the assembly on Wednesday that the trips from Yellowknife can take up to six hours. “A few additional hours on a plane is not a concern for the majority of medical travel patients, but for people who are less able to endure long flight times and discomfort, particularly elders, it is a significant burden,” Morse said, according to CBC News.

Morse said seniors have told him they are physically unable to sit on longer flights, and that requests for a shorter routing were denied even when they submitted doctor’s notes. Yellowknife Centre MLA Robert Hawkins also asked why a doctor’s note can be overruled.

Lucy Kuptana, who was interim health minister at the time, said exemptions are reviewed case by case and that her office would analyze the policy. She said more than 23,000 people use medical travel each year and that the service is costly. Patients who need supplemental oxygen are booked on direct flights, she said.

Inuvik Boot Lake MLA Denny Rodgers was named health minister the next day. He said he would look at “everything” but did not commit to new exemptions. “People are getting to their appointments and that’s the main thing,” Rodgers said. He added that he is “not a caretaker” and has about a year left in the government’s term.

Cabin Radio has previously reported that longer routings through communities such as Fort Smith and Fort Chipewyan followed changes to the territory’s airline agreements, with the health authority booking the lowest fares available.

More on the new minister is in our report on his appointment, and on the territory’s finances in our look at the N.W.T. budget forecast.

Via CBC News: N.W.T. MLAs decry lengthy medical travel flights for seniors. Background: Cabin Radio.

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