MLA for Clyde River and Qikiqtarjuaq decries lack of ground transportation options available to her constituents
Health Minister John Main, shown here in the legislative assembly earlier this year, says medical transportation in Nunavut is “not without difficulties.”
(File photo by Jeff Pelletier)
A lack of taxis is making it difficult for people to make it to their local health centres, says Uqqummiut MLA Mary Killiktee.
She raised the issue in the legislative assembly on Oct. 28.
“It’s especially hard for elders and people with disabilities,” she said, directing her question to Health Minister John Main.
Killiktee said she considers medical travel issues to be one of the “main priorities” for her constituents, who live in Clyde River and Qikiqtarjuaq.
Medical transportation in Nunavut is “not without difficulties,” Main acknowledged in his reply.
He said his department has long advocated for support to establish more ground transportation services across the territory.
“Ideally, every community in Nunavut would have a taxi service that would do this that would later be billed,” he said of the federally funded non-insured health benefits policy, which provides auxiliary health benefits to Inuit living in Nunavut.
Main said a policy change last year means travellers can bill their taxi rides to and from the airport when they have to travel out of the community for health care. Previously, the coverage depended on how far the airport was from their community.
Main suggested the new policy could create a “revenue stream” that might help bring taxi services to more remote communities in Nunavut.
Indigenous Services Canada isn’t looking into making changes to ground transportation coverage in its non-insured health benefits policy, said Sylvain-Nicolas Bourgeois, a spokesperson for the department, in an email to Nunatsiaq News.
Nunavut’s Health Department also has no plans to put this issue back on the table, Main said.