For the second time in two months, the Canadian Military has had to step in and provide Air Ambulance service to the island of Grand Manan in New Brunswick.
The Joint Rescue Centre said it got the call just before 4 p.m. on Friday, when Ambulance New Brunswick said it would be unable to perform the flight due to a low flight ceiling and fog.
The Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre sent a helicopter from Greenwood, N.S., to the island a short time later, and it took approximately six hours to complete the operation.
Although there is an island hospital, the facility does not have the resources for high-acuity cases.
Without the longtime operator, Grand Manan residents will rely on resources from the mainland.
The island has been without its previous service since late last year when Atlantic Charters grounded its medevac service due to new Transport Canada regulations around the number of hours that pilots could fly.
The company has been in negotiations with EM/ANB (Extra Mural/Ambulance New Brunswick) over a contract since.
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“The last time Atlantic Charters met over the negotiations was December 12th, 2022. We are open to continuing negotiations,” Peter Sonnenberg, Atlantic Charters’ chief pilot and vice-president of business development and strategic growth, wrote in a statement to Global News.
“There’s no kind of exemption, nor does Atlantic Charters want any kind of exemption. We don’t want to harm the people of Grand Manan.”
The community’s mayor, Bonnie Morse, said Tuesday that she estimates there are 100 medevacs a year, noting that she has been trying to work with the province to find a permanent solution.
“The longer this goes on, the less optimistic I think an easy solution will be found,” she said, speaking from the island.
“I think if there was an easy solution, we would have been there by now, and the fact that it has gone on this long, it is concerning to me that we’re still in a holding pattern.”
She said she will continue to be hopeful for a solution for the region. In the meantime, she hopes for the same level of service to be established in Grand Manan as the rest of New Brunswick.
Global News reached out to the province and Ambulance New Brunswick for comment but did not get a response in time for publication.
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