A Labrador family, mourning the loss of their infant daughter, is highlighting inadequate medevac services in the region.
Robert Way says his daughter Reya was born in April at the hospital in Goose Bay, but it soon became apparent that she was struggling.
Within minutes, the doctors decided that she was in urgent need of a medevac to NICU in St. John’s.
A request was then made for a medevac, Way told VOCM Open Line with Paddy Daly this morning.
The family was told that because of her severe condition, she was the most urgent case for medical transport in the province, however the weather was bad and they were waiting for the best weather window.
He says hours went by and when they checked on the medevac later that evening they got a shocking response.
They were told that there is no 24/7 medevac service for critically-ill newborns and that the team would not be leaving again until 7 a.m. the next morning.
Way says that was the first they’d heard of the policy and says the news was devastating.
He says they spent a long night waiting through the night, but come the morning, there was no medevac, despite the fact that commercial flights were coming and going out of Goose Bay.
He says because parents are not allowed on medevacs, they booked a commercial flight to go to St. John’s, and he was in St. John’s for six hours before his daughter finally arrived in the capital city around midnight, 31 hours after the urgent medevac call was first made.
He says he later learned it all comes down to a decision made by Eastern Health.
The health authority made the decision that there would be no medical transport team for critically-ill newborns from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. on most days.
Way says his daughter survived the 31 hour wait despite being described as one of the sickest newborns due to the “truly amazing efforts” of the staff at the Labrador Health Centre.
Sadly she passed away at the age of five months.
Way says it’s only now that he felt he was ready to talk about the “ticking time bomb” that is the medical transport system.
VOCM News has reached out to Eastern Health for comment.