After an accident, it’s a wheelchair ride through ice and snow for some in Kugluktuk
Lack of trained emergency personnel leaves hamlet without ambulance
Paul Murphy is still recovering from an accident in March that left him with five broken ribs and a damaged spine. (Photo by Arty Sarkisian)
Kugluktuk’s health centre has no permanently staffed doctors or paramedics. (Photo by Arty Sarkisian)
Paul Murphy was feeling extremely sore, lying on the ice of Coronation Gulf near Kugluktuk.
It was the night of March 28, around 6 p.m., and his son Grayson and a friend were trying to lift Murphy onto a large piece of plywood.
The 84-year-old and his wife had been taking care of a couple of foster kids. The children asked to play outside but went too far, Murphy said, so he went out on the ice on his snowmobile to bring them back.
Then, he felt an abrupt stop — he’d hit an ice bump.
The snowmobile went up in the air and Murphy hit the ground.
“I had five broken ribs, I had a damaged spine and a bruise like this,” he said, showing an area about the size of a watermelon on the right side of his chest with his hands.
Murphy’s only option was to use his cellphone to call his son for help, because Kugluktuk has no ambulance service. Grayson and his friend loaded Murphy into the back of a truck and drove off the ice to the health centre.
“I remember somebody in the back with me commenting, ‘Gee, I hope we can get this in through the front door,'” Murphy said with a chuckle.
They did manage to get him through the doors of the tiny building but had to tilt the plywood a little bit while making sure he didn’t roll off the makeshift stretcher.
“That’s about all I remember of that time,” Murphy said, sitting in his living room recently for an interview about the accident, with a walker next to him.
Kugluktuk’s health centre didn’t have any doctors on site nor the capacity to keep Murphy there overnight, so he had to wait at home for a medevac.
Several times, he was loaded onto a wheelchair and his son or grandson had to push him through ice and snow from his house to the health centre and back for checkups.
That went on for three days.
“I can only imagine the hollering coming out of me,” Murphy said of the experience.
Finally, a plane that could take him to Yellowknife’s Stanton Territorial Hospital arrived in Kugluktuk and only then was he allowed to take a ride in the hamlet’s medical transport vehicle.
A ride to the airport is the only medical transport service that the hamlet can provide, said Kevin Niptanatiak, Kugluktuk’s senior administrative officer.
“We cannot provide an ambulance service per se, because we don’t have any trained [emergency medical technicians], and we have no budget to operate an ambulance,” he said.
Niptanatiak didn’t have an estimate for how much it might cost to launch such a service.
Until the hamlet is able to follow all the required standards, its insurance will not cover any cost in case there is an accident while patients are being transported, he said.
Murphy is still getting over the accident. After several weeks recovering in Yellowknife, he still loses his balance sometimes and now needs a walker.
But he is concerned for other Kugluktuk residents.
“I think of people who are having a heart attack, for example,” he said.
“There isn’t an ambulance, there isn’t a bus, there isn’t a taxi service. What are they going to do?”
Many rural communities in Canada don’t have ambulance service — the cost is simply too high. To run one in Kugluktuk, you’d need at least 6–8 full-time staff plus housing, which would run well over $1M a year before equipment and training.
If Mr. Murphy wants ambulance access, he could return to Iqaluit where such services already exist.
Did this guy ever advocate to the GN,Feds,Hamlet? No, it’s always barking on NN comments.
Yes i did to the Hamlet and the LA.. Unfortunately our MP does not have any federal influence to help us with local issues.
Forever advocating for the Conservative Party but wants more money for healthcare. Hmm…
Just to clarify, because some of these commenters don’t have the balls to identify themselves when posting information without facts.
We in Kugluktuk have excellent staff (Doctor C, nurses, xray techs, medical travel staff, janitorial staff, security and clerical staff). Many of our medical staff do come up from the south to provide their services to us and other communities. They know most of their patients on a first name basis and our medical files. So we get the best service possible with the lack of staffing for overnight hospitalization and the lack of an ambulance.
My criticism is with the Hamlet, the GN and the legislative assembly all of whom have made legitimate excuses for not having an ambulance service.
But, my question is what have any of you done to resolve the problems? Find the staff, train them, and get an ambulance up on the next sealift. I wonder how many elders have died in Nunavut that can be attributed to the excuses presented here?
Hope u run for Mla for Kitikmeot region 🙏
So you are blaming everyone? I think you knew the risks of living in the north especially for so long.
Wasn’t Kug one of the communities that got a million dollar Van? Correct if I’m wrong, but all the Elders Vans have been swept under the rug. Nunavummiuu are expected to forget about it when there is proof; the famous “million dollar photo op”
Oh if only it were so easy.
Put ambulance in Capital Plan for 2027-28 (too late for 2026-27 now).
RFP/Tender ambulance in April 2027.
Award ambulance in Summer 2027 for $400,000 (yes, incredibly they do cost that much).
Wait two years for ambulance to be built (yes, incredibly it does take that long).
Ambulance is delivered too late for 2029 sealift.
Ambulance is delivered in Fall of 2030.
And of course, every community then would want an ambulance. $400K for 25 communities is $10,000,000. Should we increase taxes to pay for that, Paul?
And Then an ambulance needs 2 staff per shift to operate safely.
For 24/7 coverage, you’re looking at 8-10 full-time positions once holidays, sick days, and vacations are factored in.
Each hire also requires housing in the community (how many vacant units are in Kugluktuk Paul?)
Training isn’t quick — paramedic program takes 2 years, and advanced levels can add several more.
It requires regular servicing, fuel,insurance,a licensed mechanic, and replacement parts.
If the unit goes down, the community could be left without service until it’s repaired or replaced.
Add salaries, benefits, housing, equipment, and maintenance, and you’re easily at $2M+ per year per Hamlet.
Maybe Paul we should focus first on getting the Health Centre staffed before we go for the Ambulance…..
If you were out on the ice, there’s no guarantee an ambulance would have made it to you anyway: a standard ambulance is not designed for off-road work. So just because a vehicle might be available doesn’t mean it would have in been in any position to provide rescue. And speaking from experience, if they managed to get a patient in off the land (or ocean) in a vehicle, especially a truck, it doesn’t make much sense to then transfer them to an ambulance instead of heading straight to the health centre when they’re only a few minutes away.
Responsible government is about allocating resources. Doing this and not that. Making something more of a priority than something else, for the best possible reasons.
When we look at something like community ambulances, it is easy to say there is no funding available to provide for this. This is never an accurate thing to say. It simply assumes everything public funds are already spent on is of greater importance.
Over 20 years ago now, a great deal of effort (money, training, equipment) was put into school bussing. At the time, it made sense. Our towns were growing, some children do not have warm winter clothes, and a nice bus ride in the morning might induce a student or two to wake up and attend class. Here we have a very similar government activity; moving people around a community to safely access government services.
A couple of decades after starting bussing, we have some observations. The first one is that Nunavut’s attendance rate still languishes around 75%, lower than it was when Nunavut was formed. Bussing never helped. Another observation is that when the weather is bad enough for a school bus to be really useful, the town/roads are shut down as well as the school. I am not aware of any students saved from freezing by getting on a bus, but then again, I never heard of a student freezing from the lack of a bus in the first place.
For me, I think we should be scrapping school bussing as a “nice try”. You can put 700 parkas on the backs of our students for the same price of one school bus landed in Nunavut. Pay for community ambulances and drivers instead. Most certainly this service would be more useful to the public than busses have proven to be.
https://nns.thedev.ca/stories/article/sanikiluaqs-ambulance-arrived-last-fall-10-months-later-its-never-been-used/
A bunch of anonymous commenters, who don’t have many facts and want to put down Nunatsiaq News and put down people who expect a service from their servants.
A bunch of anonymous wh0 do not agree with me because they don’t like my politics but just wait till THEY need the ambulrence service for themselves or for their family members..
Mabe that is the real reason for their anonymity. Their hypocrisy will show up
Maybe when we’re all retired we’ll post our real names.
Close, but saying it’s your “politics” doesn’t fully capture it…
I worked in Igloolik for a few years. I drove the van for social services. I also transported people to and from the planes and actually anywhere else they needed to be including the health centre.
Was it perfect, no, but it worked. I could easily load a stretcher into the back of the van, with help, a nurse would come with me on critical cases to the plane and it worked pretty good.
An ambulance is expensive, if it is just transporting to and from airports or health centers, then the solution is simple enough, use the community vans.
There are always solutions, maybe not perfect but workable.
Kugluktuk does have an ambulance, and I have an ambulance license hum. Sao needs to make the EDO park the truck do some work and find some funding but so much has been wasted and compliance is most likely an issue that the funders will not touch the files. How many times did the complex need to be painted 1, twice 3 times. looks nice though.
Message me. Paul Murphy
Please contact me by messenger.c.: Paul Murphy
I see he’s still fighting the whole world by himself……