Report details confusion and ‘risky’ attempts to move care home residents during 2023 Yellowknife evacuation

A report looking at how the AVENS long-term care center in Yellowknife was evacuated during last year’s wildfires paints a picture of confusion, crumbling plans and sometimes “risky” attempts to transport vulnerable seniors on planes using luggage carts.

The report, titled “AVENS and the 2023 Wildfire Evacuations,” was obtained by CBC News through an access to information request and contains many disturbing details about the facility’s evacuation in August 2023. The recommendations in the report were shared publicly. by AVENS last January.

The report details, among other things, how most AVENS staff had left Yellowknife immediately after the citywide evacuation order was issued, leaving barely enough staff at the facility to care for residents and ensure they could safely leave the city.

AVENS CEO Darryl Dolynny described it as a “skeletal” crew left to handle the emergency evacuation of dozens of residents.

According to a post-evacuation assessment that AVENS shared with the government, part of the reason for the staff shortage was that AVENS had no way to communicate with staff other than via email.

At the time of the evacuation, there were 57 long-term care residents at AVENS, including some who were receiving specialized care for dementia or had severe mobility issues.

The report states that AVENS staff did not learn that they would be responsible for moving their residents during an evacuation until approximately two weeks before the order was issued. Previously, the AVENS emergency plan did not include provisions for evacuations.

When CBC asked Dolynny what caused the uncertainty, he said it was an “assumption” based on the fact that AVENS is contracted by the territorial health authority to care for long-term care patients only in their own facility. The staff had assumed that in the event of an evacuation, the health authority would be in charge.

Confusion during evacuation

Before Yellowknife was evacuated, AVENS staff had arranged potential flights for the long-term care home residents, temporary hotel accommodations and security in Edmonton, and transportation to and from evacuation flights. But when the evacuation actually took place, many of those plans fell through.

When AVENS staff tried to schedule evacuation flights on August 16, 2023, hours before the citywide evacuation order was officially declared, they were told that the agreement would be voided by the territorial emergency and that they would then have to go through the state of emergency. finally the Emergency Management Organization (EMO) of the territory.

EMO officials eventually connected AVENS personnel with the Canadian Forces, who secured a C-130 Hercules aircraft for the evacuation on the afternoon of August 17.

But it took more than six hours that day to get residents of the AVENS facility to the plane, in part because the city of Yellowknife couldn’t provide access to transit buses as promised.

There were also “real challenges and safety risks” when boarding residents on the Hercules plane, the report says, as there was “no proper equipment to transport residents with mobility issues.”

The Hercules didn’t depart until after midnight and AVENS residents arrived in Edmonton around 2:30 a.m. when, the report states, “some residents again had to wait long” for Leduc city buses while experiencing problems with hotel bookings. were arranged.

After the evacuation order was lifted weeks later, AVENS residents returned to Yellowknife on Dash-7 passenger planes for several days. But the city’s airstrip lacked specialized equipment to accommodate long-term residents with mobility issues.

As a result, some residents had to be loaded onto aircraft onto luggage carts and physically carried to aircraft by AVENS staff, a process described in the report as “extremely uncomfortable and risky” for residents.

Residents were at risk, says expert

According to one expert, the AVENS evacuation could have posed a significant health risk to long-term care residents and staff.

“I can tell you that you won’t find a luggage cart in a hospital, nor in a nursing home. It’s not something we would use to transport someone safely,” says Dr. Samir Sinha, a geriatric specialist. and researcher at the University Health Network in Toronto. Sinha also works with the Red Cross in Canada and the US on research and policy related to emergency preparedness for seniors.

He said long wait times and frequent movements between different locations during evacuation could also harm vulnerable elderly people, especially those who may have dementia.

AVENS followed some of the best practices identified through Sinha’s work for the Red Cross: all patients were given a go-bag containing important medications and health information, and the organization had a clear plan for where they would go and how they would travel. there.

But he said much of what went wrong during AVENS’ evacuation could and should have been prevented through better planning on the part of AVENS and local and territorial governments.

Prepare for future evacuations

Dolynny emphasizes that although the conditions of the evacuation were far from ideal, the residents of AVENS were safe at all times.

“Our residents were never in a precarious situation,” he told CBC News. “Maybe in an uncomfortable wait, yes, but always taken care of.”

He says he is very proud of the work AVENS staff and leaders have done to evacuate residents and establish care for them, with limited time and resources, in a new jurisdiction.

He also said the organization has done that made many changes since last year to better prepare for future emergencies – but he ultimately believes that AVENS should have received much more support from the territorial government. He said some of what AVENS was asked to do during the evacuation, such as negotiating directly with Alberta Health Services for resources, was simply not feasible for a non-profit organization.

Jay Boast, a spokesperson for the territory’s Department of Municipal and Community Affairs, defended the territorial government’s actions during the AVENS evacuation.

“Have we learned lessons and could we have done better? I think that’s obvious, but I think it’s in the context of an event that has never happened before in history,” he said.

“That shouldn’t be lost in the context of how things have developed.”

Bragging said that since last year, the NWT government has a new emergency plan this is intended to avoid confusion about the division of responsibilities in emergency situations.

The Northwest Territories Health and Social Services Authority has also confirmed that if another urban evacuation ever occurs, it will take the lead in moving AVENS long-term care residents and finding beds for them in Alberta.