SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - A Yellowknife family is living a day-to-day nightmare because their two-year-old child is hooked up to a mechanical heart, waiting for an organ transplant in Edmonton.

The situation is made worse because they can't be together.

The little boy's family has been separated for three weeks as the territory's medical travel policy only covers one parent's flight to Edmonton.

The child was born with a congenital heart defect and has had open-heart surgery before. But even doctors didn't anticipate what happened three weeks ago. During a scheduled operation on the child's heart, something went wrong. His body couldn't support the procedure and doctors had to remove his heart.

An external pump is keeping the child's blood flowing until a transplant heart becomes available. The usually active boy, who will turn three in May, is at the top of the list for a heart transplant. In the meantime, he's hooked up to a machine, bedridden and unable to move around and play. His mother has been by his side ever since.

The boy's father, who asked that neither he or his son and family be identified, said he appreciates the health care in the territory, but said more flexibility is needed in cases like his own.

"It doesn't allow for people who have extreme or lengthy illnesses. It's unreasonable to expect one parent of a child to go to Edmonton for an unknown period of time and not get any respite," he said.

He said the Department of Health and Social Services turned down his request for three additional flights to Edmonton a month - two for him to visit on weekends and one for his wife to return home for a weekend.

The father of three said despite support from family and friends, the ordeal is taking a toll on everyone. He said he wants to be with his wife, but has to take care of their other two children here and must continue running a business. He said he can't afford to fly his family back and forth from Edmonton.

"She's tired, I'm tired and it's been three weeks. The other two kids, their everyday (life) has completely changed ... nothing is the same except they go to school," he said. "(The boy's mother) is down there for as long as it takes, by herself, without the opportunity to see her other children, without the opportunity to get a break unless we can afford to pay for trips back and forth."

The anxiety of not knowing what happens next is making the family consider if they should leave the territory.

The father said the department's policy around travel isn't reasonable. He said transplant cases are different than illnesses where patients and family members can fly back and forth for treatment.

Raising the issue in the legislative assembly on Tuesday, Yellowknife Centre MLA Robert Hawkins said the Department of Health and Social Services needs to approach families dealing with organ transplants, and precarious life and death situations, differently.

Hawkins asked Health Minister Sandy Lee if a policy could be created to ensure family members could be brought together in situations where a family member is living on a day-to-day basis.

Lee said the department doesn't distinguish by condition for the medical travel policy and can't pay for more than one escort, despite daily requests from people with a variety of conditions.

Under the department's policy, the deputy minister may approve a second non-medical escort in rare situations.

In Edmonton, the two-year-old's mother continues to wait by her toddler's bedside alone, next to the machine that's keeping him alive.

"I can't expect my wife to stay down there for a year. And it could be a year, it could be two years, or he could die tomorrow," said the boy's father.