Tuk mayor wants action after call for emergency medical service

The mayor of Tuktoyaktuk says he supports establishing emergency medical services and a sobering centre in his community.

The creation of those services was among a range of recommendations published earlier this month after an inquest into a 2021 death.

Mayor Erwin Elias said a form of ambulance service used to exist in Tuktoyaktuk: the same people contracted to transport medical supplies and help people who weren’t in critical condition get to the health centre, would also respond to people in medical distress.

He said that changed around six to eight years ago, when the NWT government told those contractors they could no longer invoice the territory for responding to emergency calls.

That “opened up a can of worms” about liability, Elias said.

The community has never had dedicated paramedics.

Since the old system was shut down, Elias said RCMP or residents are left to respond to emergency calls – and a proper ambulance service is needed.

“Now everybody calls the RCMP and RCMP, they’re going to respond. They’re not going to drive by anybody … but they’re at risk too, because they don’t have the qualifications,” he said.

“At one point the community said, ‘OK, well, we’ll do it.’ And we got the volunteer fire department to start doing stuff like that, and we found out really quick that we can’t be doing this.”

Inquest issues recommendations

The community’s reliance on RCMP to act as an ambulance service, as well as provide intoxicated people a secure place to stay, were key issues explored during a recent coroner’s inquest into the 2021 death of Sylvia Panaktalok in Tuktoyaktuk.

RCMP members testified they are not the best agency to respond to those calls.

Health workers testified that nurses in the NWT are not allowed to respond to emergency calls outside health centres and hospitals for safety reasons, due to a lack of resources and because nurses and doctors are not first responders.

Only in the most exceptional of circumstances, RCMP testifying at the inquest said, nurses in Tuktoyaktuk had broken that rule.

Jurors at the inquest determined Panaktalok died of accidental alcohol poisoning nearly two hours after RCMP took her to the Tuktoyaktuk detachment and half an hour after they subsequently rushed her to the health centre.

The jury issued 11 recommendations to the RCMP and NWT government to prevent future similar deaths.

Those recommendations included establishing emergency medical services and alternative housing for intoxicated people in Tuktoyaktuk.

‘We may have not lost a lot of people’

Elais said previous lobbying of the NWT government regarding the ambulance issue and other community needs had fallen on “deaf ears.”

“If we had the proper medic services here, we may have not lost a lot of people. And we’re still sitting here,” he told Cabin Radio, noting other communities in the territory also lack ambulance service.

“How much badder does it have to get, right? It gets really frustrating.”

The Tuktoyaktuk RCMP’s former detachment commander testified at the inquest that when he spoke about the lack of ambulance service with the hamlet’s senior administrative officer, he was told it was an issue the community had raised with the NWT government.

He said he wrote a briefing note to the RCMP in the hope it would be addressed at a higher level, but never received a written response as requested.

Aftercare needed

Elias said he believes having a sobering centre is “an amazing idea.”

“Any kind of infrastructure or facility or support you can have like that is always going to be an asset in the community,” he said.

The mayor said aftercare supports are also needed for people returning to Tuktoyaktuk and other NWT communities from addictions treatment down south.

“Right now, there’s a lot of people – and in the whole North – that are going down south for treatment … They go, leave for three months, they come back and they’re right back in the thick of things because when they come back, there’s nothing here,” he said, adding many people who end up in jail struggle with addictions.

“People going to jail, they come back home – and sometimes in worse shape. Sometimes they had a home when they left and when they come back, they’ve got no home.”

The lack of aftercare support in the NWT was highlighted in a 2022 auditor general’s report, which found “concerning shortcomings” in the territory’s addictions services.

RCMP and GNWT response

A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Services said the NWT government is reviewing the verdict of the coroner’s inquest and “will work collaboratively across departments to review their findings and consider improvements to enhance quality and safety in our processes.”

Eight of the jury’s 11 recommendations focused on RCMP in the territory, including ensuring officers and guards are aware of policies and following them.

The NWT RCMP said in a statement that it “appreciates the thoroughness of the members of the coroner’s jury.”

“We as an organization must now take time to carefully consider these recommendations,” a spokesperson wrote, “to determine which ones should be implemented and how best to do so.”