IQALUIT - A refugee claimant living in Iqaluit might be on the hook for his medical travel.

Armando Severino needed specialized medical attention in the south after he was injured in a brawl, but he said the hospital didn't recognize his coverage under a federal health program for refugee claimants.

Severino said he was attacked and badly beaten outside the Legion the morning of July 25 and suffered head injuries serious enough to affect his daily work. He said he walks unsteadily and the pain in his head has gotten worse since he was hurt.

Severino said he doesn't have a clear memory of the incident. He said he was attacked from behind and quickly fell to the ground. A friend of his who witnessed the incident told him several men kicked him repeatedly while he was on the ground, he said.

"It was so fast, I can't remember the face of the person who hit me," he said.

Severino woke up the next day at Qikiqtani General Hospital. There, a nurse told him he probably had a minor concussion at best and permanent brain damage at worst. He needed a CAT scan for doctors to know exactly how bad it was, and maybe more tests afterward. Qikiqtani General doesn't have the equipment for that, so he had to go to Ottawa for it. As of press time, News/North had no word on Severino's diagnosis.

Severino said when presented his health coverage paperwork from the federal Department of Citizenship and Immigration, hospital personnel had never seen anything like it. They told him he'd have to pay his own way to Ottawa.

As a refugee claimant, Severino is covered under the Interim Federal Health Program. That program is designed to cover refugee claimants until they get provincial or territorial health coverage.

However, the Interim Federal Health Program is nationwide and doesn't have any specific provisions for how to handle people living in remote parts of the country, according to a representative of Citizenship and Immigration.

"We would look as a case-by-case basis," said Lorraine Lavallee. Lavallee said the IFH program couldn't cover every possible scenario because there would always be exceptions occurring.

Emergency travel such as ambulance or medevac is covered, but non-emergency medical travel should be approved ahead of time, explained Lavallee.

Until now Severino had assumed the federal health coverage would take care of him, so he didn't have Nunavut health coverage. He applied in early August.

"Nobody told me nothing," he said. "I got these papers that I got (from the) federal program. I didn't know there would be a problem."

In such a case, Lavallee recommended a person should contact Citizenship and Immigration to make a claim for reimbursement. She didn't know how long that would take, saying it depended on how complicated the claim was.