SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - A recent decision by Edmonton city council threatens to make the health care situation in the North a little less stable.

After a series of assessments and three days of public hearings in June, the council decided by a 10 to three vote on July 8 to begin the phased closure of Edmonton Municipal Airport – the downtown landing site for medevac flights from Yellowknife and the North.

Phase one involves negotiations with the Edmonton Regional Airport Authority to close one of the two runways immediately. Phase two will see a final closure date for the second runway announced, and preparations to have Edmonton International Airport take all fixed wing medevac flights.

Don Douglas, former executive director of the Northern Air Transport Association, is representing Northern airlines who oppose the moves.

"The (international airport) is too far out, the traffic's too bad and it's just not an acceptable airport for medevacs," he says.

The medevac assessment commissioned by the city estimates that ground ambulance times increase by 30-35 minutes to the Royal Alexandra Hospital and 10 minutes to the University of Alberta Hospital when they come from the international airport.

Air Tindi has flown an average of 385 patients a year from Yellowknife to the municipal airport since 1990. "Anytime anybody's seriously injured they go to Edmonton," says Teri Arychuk, VP of operations, who has used the service herself.

"The timing is crucial for the patient and (the downtown airport is) five minutes away from the Royal Alexandra Hospital."

Paul Laserich, co-owner and general manager of Adlair Aviation, accuses the mayor of Edmonton, Stephen Mandel, of being "in bed with the land developers." Adlair flies patients from the Kitikmeot region in Nunavut to Yellowknife and critical patients direct to Edmonton.

The close proximity to hospitals for medevac flights however, is not reason enough to keep the airport running for Edmontonians.

In 1995, a public referendum in Edmonton supported consolidating scheduled flights to the international airport and limiting passenger numbers at the municipal airport.

According to Kim Krushell, one of the 10 councillors who voted to close the airport, 41 per cent of flights at the municipal airport are students and enthusiasts. Less than 10 per cent are for medevacs.

Capital Health, which runs health care facilities in Edmonton and the surrounding area, had "every opportunity," says Krushell, to object, but came out in favour of the plan.

Pat O'Connor owns Medflight, a medevac nursing service contracted to Adlair. O'Connor also worked as a medevac nurse for Air Tindi from 1995 to 2005.

"Some patients, they're so unstable that by the time we travel the five, ten minutes to the Royal Alex, that's more than enough," she says.

"From the nursing perspective it's going to make our ground times, which are long already, longer."

"It wasn't an easy decision for council," says Krushell. "The other issue for our citizens is that Edmontonians, unless you have a private plane … you don't get to fly out of the municipal airport," she says.

Krushell claims the ring road, due for completion in 2015, will speed up ground transfers of patients. The city needs the land for expansion of the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology and to install rapid transport.