Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Jan 18/02) - Chris Balla spends a lot of time booking trips.

For nearly three years Balla has been the client travel specialist in the medical transportation department of the Inuvik Regional Health and Social Services Board. He explained his job entails a lot of duties, including booking return travel for patients coming to the hospital for medical appointments from the outlying communities.

"I book their travel home. I approve their travel to come in, so the health centres fill out all the paperwork, they send it to me," Balla said. "I check their health care, I check their appointments, where they're going."

Balla said now that the ice roads are open, he's coordinating a lot with taxi companies.

"In the summertime we're busy booking with airlines, and in the wintertime we're busy dealing with taxi drivers, and airlines."

Balla also looks after patients heading outside of the NWT for appointments, and approves their travel if it's for a service not available within the NWT.

"We explain to people what their entitlements are," Balla said.

"It's all based on the travel policy and how it's interpreted, and explaining to people what their benefits are. A lot of people don't know what their entitlements are, and they never think about it until they actually need it."

In addition, Balla coordinates staff travel and staff medical travel.

"If anybody is travelling and the Inuvik Regional Health Board is paying for it, we know about it," Balla said.

"We deal with all of the health board vehicles, anything the health board has on four wheels, we look after, coordinate the maintenance. We keep record of the drivers licences," he said.

"We arrange the scheduling for servicing in the various communities."

Balla is on the go most of the time, but explained he likes it that way.

"This place is busy all the time, with really, really busy days. So the days just fly by, the weeks, the days, the hours -- it just goes," he said.

"There's always something new."

Balla also likes interacting with lots of people.

"In this job you meet everybody. They're always walking in the door and you actually get to put a face to the name. That's another nice thing about the job."