Advertisement. Advertisement. Part four<\/a> set out a labour arbitrator\u2019s indictment of that investigation, which cleared Patterson on all counts.<\/p>\n This is the final installment (though Cabin Radio will track developments related to the case). Here, Carter and others with experience in the field will set out two key changes that they think might help avoid a similar crisis in future.<\/p>\n Later in this article, the NWT government will tell us that one of those changes, at least, may be addressed soon.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat transpired in Fort Resolution was deeply unfortunate and has provided an important learning opportunity,\u201d said NWT health minister Lesa Semmler, a former nurse, in a statement to Cabin Radio. <\/p>\n Advertisement. Advertisement. \u201cI know first-hand the pressures and challenges healthcare workers face \u2013 especially in small and remote communities, where mobility issues, limited staff and resources, and heightened demands can make the work particularly difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n Semmler said she visits small communities to hear from front-line staff and residents about their concerns, and also to \u201chelp ensure there is clarity about what health centre staff can and cannot do under GNWT policy\u201d \u2013 a concern brought up time and again in this series.<\/p>\n \u201cGaps remain in meeting the needs of small communities. That is why we are looking at new ways to strengthen partnerships with Indigenous Governments and other GNWT departments, so we can work together to fill those gaps and support residents more effectively,\u201d Semmler wrote.<\/p>\n \u201cI am committed to advancing culturally informed practices in healthcare and to fostering relationships built on trust and respect with communities across the territory. It is critical that we listen closely to the concerns of healthcare workers and respond meaningfully to the pressures they face. <\/p>\n \u201cAt the same time, I expect all healthcare professionals in our system to take responsibility for learning about Indigenous cultures, practices, and approaches to relationship-building.\u201d<\/p>\n Not every problem documented in our series will be explored here. <\/p>\n There is deep-rooted trauma in many NWT communities that an amended policy or fresh legislation alone will not cure, and there are disconnects \u2013 and bonds \u2013 between employees and residents that only form on a case-by-case, relationship-by-relationship basis.<\/p>\n But Carter thinks there are places the NWT government can start.<\/p>\n Advertisement. Advertisement. \u201cWe need a \u2018plan A.\u2019 A real plan A,\u201d Carter said.<\/p>\n What should Plan A be?<\/p>\n Plan A, according to Carter, is: \u201cParamedics that are stationed in every health centre who work within the team dynamic during the clinic hours, and who attend the scene to retrieve patients with the assistance of RCMP to maximize safety.\u201d<\/p>\n And if the NWT cannot figure out how to place paramedics in each community, Carter said, the territory should abandon the policy that forbids nurses from leaving the health centre to attend emergencies.<\/p>\n In place since 2019, that policy proved central to the Patterson case. Multiple residents described feeling at best personally slighted, and at worst horrified, when nurses refused to come and help a seriously ill relative at their home.<\/p>\n Some nurses, who noted they were following a policy designed to keep them safe, have nonetheless said they understood this frustration whenever it arose.<\/p>\n The basic outcome of no ambulance service and no nurses able to leave the health centre is that some medical emergencies take place with no expert assistance readily available, and residents run the risk of being left on their own \u2013 or with help only by phone \u2013 to do what they can for relatives or themselves.<\/p>\n Some residents of smaller communities have made the point that this is not tolerated<\/a>, as a system, in larger and predominantly non-Indigenous towns and cities. <\/p>\n \u201cThere are so many nurses who don\u2019t want to come back or can\u2019t come back because they get into a situation like this and the town reacts badly \u2013 as they\u2019re going to, because they\u2019re in a crisis moment and being told no,\u201d said Carter.<\/p>\n Advertisement. Advertisement. \u201cAnd then we can\u2019t repair the relationship, because this policy impedes us from being able to repair the relationship. <\/p>\n \u201cEvery nurse has the right to stand behind that policy. I don\u2019t think\u00a0Jennifer Patterson did anything wrong. I just know that I\u00a0come at life from a different perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n Carter works around the policy. <\/p>\n For example, if RCMP are attending a home, Carter will offer to bring a stretcher to the police \u2013 which does not technically qualify as a home visit \u2013 then switch to being a \u201cvolunteer\u201d rather than a nurse, going into the home in a personal capacity.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m very by-the-book for 90 percent of the things but in these situations, you\u2019ve got to bend. You have to be flexible. You have to find a way to get around these things so that people know you\u2019re there.\u201d<\/p>\n Can the NWT figure out ambulances?<\/p>\n We\u2019ll come back to the question of that policy, why some nurses break it and others don\u2019t, and whether it should be scrapped.<\/p>\n The policy would be less of a central factor if the NWT and its communities were able to provide transportation to the health centre that did not involve nurses.<\/p>\n Some form of ambulance or paramedic service was by far the number-one suggestion not only from healthcare workers who spoke with Cabin Radio, but also from residents in Fort Resolution. Edjericon, the MLA, had brought it up in news articles and in the legislature, as had his predecessor in the role, Steve Norn.<\/p>\n Advertisement. Advertisement. \u201cEven the smallest little rinky-dink town in Saskatchewan has ambulance attendants. Even in northern BC, they have people who are trained to basically do first aid, drive a truck and do some CPR,\u201d said Carter.<\/p>\n \u201cThe communities aren\u2019t set up to support an ambulance service of any kind,\u201d said Barbara Bryant, a veteran nurse with more than two decades\u2019 experience in the NWT. \u201cIt\u2019s a problem, and that one thing makes the pot boil over.\u201d<\/p>\n In the past, the NWT government has been clear that it considers provision of ambulance service \u2013 or anything like it \u2013 to be a community\u2019s responsibility, and the GNWT has said communities get funding with this in mind (but are not mandated to provide the service).<\/p>\n While the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs repeated that in a statement this week, the department also said the GNWT is now working on ways to address this issue.<\/p>\n \u201cAs we recognize that most communities in the NWT cannot sustain ground ambulance or highway rescue services, Maca and the Department of Health and Social Services are working on a pre-facility transport model,\u201d stated Alice Twa, a spokeperson for Maca.<\/p>\n \u201cExact details on how a pre-facility transport model could function have not been finalized but, broadly speaking, this service would help transport residents in communities without ground ambulance services to their local health centre.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Twa, Maca has previously engaged with community and Indigenous governments about this kind of service \u201cand much of the feedback is guiding the proposed approach to pre-facility transport.\u201d<\/p>\n No timeline was provided for the introduction of such a service.<\/p>\n Advertisement. Advertisement. A territory-wide rollout of a plan to get residents to health centres would be transformative. Currently, only five communities have ambulances to do that job: Yellowknife, Hay River, Inuvik, Fort Smith and Fort Simpson.<\/p>\n \u2018This policy creates inequality\u2019<\/p>\n Carter\u2019s view of the so-called \u201cno house calls\u201d policy for health centre nurses is clear: when needs must, the policy goes out the window.<\/p>\n They are not the only nurse who described that approach to Cabin Radio. Multiple nurses said they find ways around the policy at least occasionally.<\/p>\n The practical impact of some nurses working around the policy and others (like Jennifer Patterson) rigidly following it is chaos.<\/p>\n Bryant described arriving in an NWT community where, in her words, \u201cthe previous nurse-in-charge had traipsed around the community all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019d do after-hours and do home visits, and she set that community up for absolute failure,\u201d said Bryant, because there was no guarantee that future nurses would similarly set aside the health authority\u2019s policy, creating an inevitable conflict.<\/p>\n Still, Bryant understands why the policy was introduced.<\/p>\n \u201cHistorically, when I first started working in the North, we did help get people to the health centre. But it\u2019s not always safe. You don\u2019t know what you\u2019re walking into, and so it is the best policy for us not to leave the health centre,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Advertisement. Advertisement. But at the same time, she said the policy \u2013 married to the lack of ambulance service \u2013 had \u201creally set the nurses up for difficult, difficult experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n Carter said if the GNWT\u2019s \u201cpre-facility transport\u201d plan does not pan out, and if the health authority\u2019s policy stays in place, nurses will be the ones who are caught in the middle.<\/p>\n \u201cSure, nurses in the south don\u2019t go into homes, but they have a failsafe \u2013 they have paramedics, they have RCMP, they have fire. They have three different organizations that can go into homes,\u201d Carter said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have none up here. So if we recognize that a policy is racist \u2013 not intentionally, just in the lack of equality based on what is happening in the North and what is happening in the south \u2013 then that policy is meant to change. <\/p>\n \u201cI think we can resoundingly, across the board, decide that this policy creates inequality for people living in the North.\u201d<\/p>\n The health authority has given no indication that the policy is up for discussion.<\/p>\n Who else should learn?<\/p>\n The labour arbitrator, Amanda Rogers, made plain the health authority\u2019s need to improve its management of situations like the one that unfolded in Fort Resolution.<\/p>\n There is real bitterness among some healthcare workers at the authority\u2019s approach in the Patterson case. Even the spouse of one nurse wrote to Cabin Radio to complain about the effect of a \u201csystemic issue within the management of the health authority\u201d on their partner and the profession.<\/p>\n Advertisement. Advertisement. The health authority\u2019s statement to Cabin Radio after the arbitrator\u2019s ruling in Patterson\u2019s favour read: \u201cThe NTHSSA appreciates the effort that has gone into this arbitration process and recognizes the commitment made by all parties involved in facilitating a fair and respectful resolution and we have accepted the adjudicator\u2019s findings and recommendations. <\/p>\n \u201cWhile this experience has not been without its challenges, it has provided valuable perspective and several important lessons. Moving forward, we are committed to applying these insights to prevent similar challenges across the organization.\u201d<\/p>\n If MLAs initially had a clear lesson from the reprimand and fine issued to Edjericon<\/a> for his part in events (some healthcare workers said they found his $2,500 fine to be insufficient), that lesson may now be more complicated.<\/p>\n More recently, another MLA \u2013 Shane Thompson \u2013 was exonerated by the same integrity commissioner<\/a>, David Phillip Jones, over a case that has similarities to this one.<\/p>\n Thompson had been trying to have a school principal fired in Fort Simpson, a community he represents in the legislature.<\/p>\n Jones cleared him of breaking the code of conduct, not least because Thompson had for the most part lobbied for the principal to be fired using his personal email account and acting in a personal capacity. Only when he used his legislative email address and headed notepaper did Jones find fault.<\/p>\n Though the cases are by no means identical, that conclusion suggests Edjericon\u2019s fate might have been different had he used a Hotmail account to campaign for Patterson\u2019s firing rather than expressly doing so as an MLA.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople who are MLAs are entitled to have personal and private lives, and are entitled to express their opinions in their personal capacities. Being elected an MLA does not deprive one of one\u2019s personal and private life,\u201d Jones wrote in a report published earlier this month.<\/p>\n Advertisement. Advertisement. Not a nurse but a community member<\/p>\n In Fort Resolution, while one resident said things are \u201cabout the same now\u201d as when Patterson worked at the health centre, two others reported progress. <\/p>\n Staffing at the health centre is understood to have stabilized after trouble attracting employees in the immediate wake of Patterson leaving the community.<\/p>\n Across the NWT, though, four nurses each described the sensation that without change, a Patterson incident could happen again either in Fort Resolution or elsewhere.<\/p>\n This series has mostly dealt with nurses and community members as though they were distinct groups.<\/p>\n Patterson, for example, worked a six-week shift pattern in Fort Resolution. Nurses who spoke with Cabin Radio said that pattern is common: six weeks in the community, six weeks living somewhere else.<\/p>\n One nurse, however, described spending a significant period living full-time in the small community they served and the trust that built over time \u2013 trust that overcame the \u201cno house calls\u201d policy and lack of an ambulance.<\/p>\n \u201cThe first two months that I was there, I think I sat on my kitchen floor and cried every night. I didn\u2019t know what the hell I was doing there. It was so hard. I didn\u2019t know anybody,\u201d they said. (The nurse requested anonymity to discuss details of their employment.)<\/p>\n \u201cBut then the days got longer, I started digging out of the hole, and it was a completely different environment. It was a completely different space,\u201d the nurse continued.<\/p>\n Advertisement.![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/NWT-Violence-Shelters.png\")
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Health minister Lesa Semmler. Aastha Sethi\/Cabin Radio<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Cabin-Radio-Ad_May-24-2.png\")
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The health centre in Fort Providence. Emily Blake\/Cabin Radio<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/4493-GNWT-HSS-HPV-Marketing-Campaign_CabinRadio_600x500px.jpg\")
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Fort Simpson\u2019s health centre in May 2023. Megan Miskiman\/Cabin Radio<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/image001-1.jpg\")
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Then-health minister Glen Abernethy studies a screen inside Fort Resolution\u2019s health and social services centre in June 2018. Ollie Williams\/Cabin Radio<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n