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Medevac Crisis Puts Northern Québec Patients at Grave Risk
1 Aug
Summary
- Doctors report lack of pilots and planes for medevac flights
- Patients face delays and risks due to runway renovations in Puvirnituq
- Nurses forced to work extended shifts to care for critical patients
As of August 1st, 2025, doctors in northern Québec's Nunavik region are sounding the alarm over a critical shortage of medevac flights that is putting patients' lives at grave risk. According to Dr. Vincent Rochette-Coulombe, a general practitioner at the Inuulitsivik Health Centre in Puvirnituq, the lack of available pilots and planes has led to "a lot of pretty bad situations" for the region's most critically ill patients.
The Inuulitsivik Health Centre serves as a hub for the seven Nunavik villages along the Hudson Bay coast, receiving the sickest patients from the area who are flown in by bush plane. Many of these patients then need to be stabilized and transferred to Montreal for emergency care. However, the ongoing renovations to Puvirnituq's community runway have severely disrupted air travel in and out of the region, with only smaller, slower bush planes able to land there currently.
This situation came to a head last week when the health centre team received calls to prepare for a premature baby and a patient with an abdominal hemorrhage, but Rochette-Coulombe said there were not enough aircraft available to evacuate them. Ultimately, a plane had to be dispatched from the nearby town of Kuujjuaq to transport one of the patients. On another occasion, a baby in respiratory distress arrived at the health centre at 2 a.m., but the medevac flight was delayed by 3-4 hours due to pilot availability issues, forcing nurses to work extended shifts to care for the critical patient.
"If we hadn't had the help from Kuujjuaq or nurses willing to work nearly 24 hours, we would have had at least two patients that would have died," Rochette-Coulombe said. The lack of backup teams and the federal regulations limiting pilots' flight hours have exacerbated the problem, leaving healthcare staff to "work harder and longer hours to stay with the patients."
Surgeon Evan Wong, who is part of the team that treats Nunavik patients, warns that delays in getting these remote patients to appropriate hospital care can significantly increase their risk of clinical deterioration. A previous study found that for every hour of delay, a seriously injured patient's chances of worsening go up by 4%. The additional transfers between different modes of transportation also add to the risks.
With the runway renovations expected to last until mid-September, the doctors and officials in Puvirnituq are urgently calling for more resources and solutions to ensure critical patients can be evacuated in a timely manner and receive the care they need.
