Preparations are underway in British Columbia to host about 55 hospital patients and long-term care home residents from Yellowknife.
The evacuees, fleeing a wildfire encroaching on the Northwest Territories capital, are expected to arrive by military aircraft on Friday afternoon.
Health Minister Adrian Dix said the province began co-ordination with the territorial government to care for them before the evacuation order was issued Wednesday, in anticipation of the possibility.
“Staff in Vancouver Coastal, Fraser Health and Providence Health Care are preparing for this, have prepared for this. We’ve already been through the patient charts to assign people,” he said at a wildfire press conference in Victoria on Thursday.
“Most of the long-term care patients will go to Mount Saint Joseph’s … and the hospital patients will be triaged and assessed at our operations centre at YVR as they’re brought forward.”
Flights for all Yellowknife’s 20,000 or so residents began Thursday.
The patient group was initially expected to arrive in B.C. on Thursday as well, but its aircraft was delayed in Quebec, according to Trevor White, operations director for Hospital Transfers.
White said the goal is to have patients touch down at Vancouver International Airport between 2:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m., but the situation is very “fluid.”
About 30 ambulances will be waiting for them on the ground, he added.
In an emailed statement, YVR Airport said is receiving other flights from Yellowknife operated by its partners, some of which are carrying non-medical evacuees.
“YVR has increased staff across various areas of our operations and in terminal to support those travelling from Yellowknife and those coming to the airport to greet them,” it wrote.
“Additional YVR staff, including Guest Experience representatives and Green Coat volunteers, are stationed at Information Counters and throughout the terminal.”
Meanwhile, Dix said the patient group expected Friday contains about 22 long-term care residents, alternate care patients and hospital patients who are assessed for long-term care, and 33 hospital patients including pediatric patients, pre- and post-operation patients.
“On an individual level, it’s an extraordinary trip for somebody in a hospital or care home in the Northwest Territories to come down to Vancouver,” he said, “and very difficult for the staff there, challenging for the staff here, and of course, mostly really challenging for the patients.
“Everybody at all levels is doing everything we can to support them.”
The health minister said the province is “well-prepared” for a transfer of this magnitude, because of its experiencing transferring patients “overnight” from the Interior to Vancouver during the pandemic.
“These are numbers that we are able to absorb,” he told reporters.
“These are challenging times of course, but it goes without saying that in this country, we support other jurisdictions just as they support us when we’re facing very challenging, very difficult, and really terrible circumstances.”
More than 200 wildfires across the Northwest Territories this season have already burned an area four times the size of Prince Edward Island.
Eight communities had been evacuated as of Wednesday, representing 15 per cent — or nearly 6,800 people — of the territory’s population.
There is only one road out of Yellowknife that leads away from the fire and it passes south through land already scorched by the flames, including the burned town of Enterprise, now all but destroyed.
The fire about 17 kilometres northwest of the city could reach it by Saturday if there is no rain. The evacuation order states that residents have until noon on Friday to leave.
— with files from Nathaniel Dove and Karen Bartko
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