In-person physician visits to the remote First Nations community of Wuikinuxv on the central coast will resume after the First Nations Health Authority confirmed Thursday it will pay the overdue portion of a helicopter bill that had resulted in medical flights being stopped.
Wuikinuxv Nation tribal manager Paul Willie said the community is grateful that those involved are living up to their commitments.
“We will be happy the doctor will be coming here on a continual basis,” said Willie. “It’s very important to primary care in our community.”
Peter Barratt, co-owner of West Coast Helicopters based in Port McNeill, cancelled flights into Wuikinuxv on Rivers Inlet last week over an unpaid bill of about $75,000.
The shutdown meant Port McNeill physician Dr. Prean Armogam, who has provided services in the area for 16 years, could only offer virtual appointments on July 7. The next scheduled appointment is July 21.
“To ensure a quick resumption of these vital in-community health and wellness visits, the FNHA has decided to cover the past due invoices owed to West Coast Helicopters in the amount of $55,000,” the First Nations Health Authority said in a statement.
The remainder of the bill is not past due and relates to flights to two other service areas.
West Coast Helicopters started transporting doctors into the First Nations communities of Kingcome Inlet, Kyuquot and Wuikinuxv about 44 years ago. Barratt said one doctor flies from Port Alice to Kyuquot, two doctors fly from Alert Bay to Kingcome Inlet, and Armogam flies from Port McNeill into Wuikinuxv.
Kingcome Inlet and Kyuquot are within Island Health’s service area, while Wuikinuxv falls within the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority. People from all three areas access medical care on the Island.
Historically, Island Health paid for doctors’ flights into all three communities, but more recently, the province has been paying for those to Kyuquot, with the First Nations Health Authority paying for visits to Kingcome Inlet and Wuikinuxv.
Armogam blamed all three health authorities for the funding mix-up “because none of the three of them are owning this orphaned First Nations community.”
Barratt said after decades of flights, he has a close relationship with all the First Nations communities and it was hard to call a halt to the flights because of the unpaid bills.
The health authority said the health and wellness of B.C. First Nations is its first priority, and it will explore methods to recoup the money for the helicopter flights through Jordan’s Principle.
Under Jordan’s Principle, named for a five-year-old boy from Norway House Cree Nation in Manitoba who died while the federal and provincial governments argued about who should pay for his care, the federal government has pledged that First Nations children will get the products, services and supports they need, with payments to be worked out later.
Willie said it’s important for First Nation members to have medical care where they live, adding the Wuikinuxv have a “sacred connection to the land that drives us to be here.”
The Wuikinuxv Nation, also known as the Oweekeno Nation, is a First Nations government whose traditional territory is the shores of Rivers Inlet and Owikeno Lake on the central coast, south of Bella Bella and north of Queen Charlotte Strait.
