And the experience has Rainer Kossmann thinking there needs to be better coordination between various components of the health care system.

On the afternoon of Nov. 19, Kossmann broke his leg when he slipped on black ice crossing a street.

"It was a fairly innocent little slip," says Kossmann, 56. "But I knew right away it was seriously broken."

Both bones in his left leg were broken, leaving his foot dangling at a 90-degree angle to the left.

However, it was about 30 hours later before he was operated on at an Alberta hospital.

In between, Kossmann was medevaced from Fort Smith to Yellowknife in the middle of the night, only to be told a surgeon was unavailable at Stanton Territorial Hospital.

On Nov. 20, he was flown south to Sturgeon Hospital in St. Albert, where he was operated on that evening.

Kossmann says he had no sleep Tuesday night and just a little on Wednesday. "By Thursday night, I was absolutely bushed."

Rainer was flown back to Fort Smith that Sunday by commercial jet.

However, he had been assigned an aisle seat, even though he could not bend his broken leg.

As it happened, Health and Social Services Minister Michael Miltenberger was checking in for the same flight and suggested Kossmann be booked into three seats so he could sit sideways.

"That worked quite successfully," says Kossmann.

Now recuperating at home in Fort Smith, Kossmann says everyone he dealt with during the ordeal were professional and helpful, including Miltenberger.

However, he says the system seems to be separated into "stovepipes" - a term he uses in his work in systems analysis and design - and moving from one to the other is a problem.

"There's no significant continuity across those stovepipes," he observes. "They're all their own little entities."

Better communication might have also prevented the "wasted" trip to Yellowknife, he says. "I should have been sent down South."

Not only would that have been easier on him, but would have saved the government money, he notes.

Miltenberger agrees improvements can be made, noting he has heard of other examples where the process didn't flow smoothly.

The minister says his department's action plan has identified the need for better intake and discharge of patients, along with avoiding unnecessary trips which could unduly stretch out access to treatment.

While noting that things work well the majority of the time, he says. "It's an area we know we have to make improvements."