IQALUIT
It started small, with reports of a deadly pediatric SARS virus spreading in Ottawa.

An air ambulance worker noticed one of his patients flown from Iglulik to Iqaluit to Ottawa had symptoms. A jet full of children was set to arrive in Iqaluit from Ottawa the following week. Suddenly, the government, first responders and the hospital were bracing for an epidemic.

Then, in heavy fog, a jet crashed at the Iqaluit airport.

Fortunately, it was all an exercise, a mock disaster to test theoretical scenarios that could happen in Iqaluit and Nunavut. In fact, each scenario was based on a real event, event leader and emergency room physician Dr. Laurie Mazurik said.

"All I did was look at what has happened in the North," said Mazurik, who works at Toronto's Sunnybrook Hospital. "H1N1 was very deadly to First Nations and not so deadly to others, so there are always vulnerabilities. In the North, there's endemic TB, which is now drug-resistant. There was the plane crash in Resolute Bay. Things like this happen, and this was an opportunity to use what has already happened so they can learn from what has happened in the past and prepare for what happens in the future."

Nurse Steve Scott organized the mock disaster table-top exercise, which brought together representatives from Qikiqtani General Hospital, Keewatin Air (air ambulance), Iqaluit Airport Authority, RCMP, Iqaluit Fire Department, and more on May 2. Each table had four to five representatives.

The exercise was a free event tied to a paid personal protective equipment training session he organized for health-care workers.

"I wanted to be able to give people the opportunity to develop a common language, a common knowledge," Scott said. "I wanted it so that a Keewatin nurse brings in an infectious TB patient from up-island, when they come to the airport and the ambulance picks them up, they can speak to the ambulance people and they can dress in the proper PPE (personal protective equipment), and the Keewatin (Air) nurse can help them. When the ambulance gets to the hospital and they bring the patient into the room, a nurse can then help the EMS doff their PPE in the right way."

Due to a smaller than expected enrolment for the personal protective equipment class, Scott bore the brunt of the cost of the weekend out of his own pocket. His motivation was to help people avoid going through the pain he did when he worked at Sunnybrook and faced SARS - severe acute respiratory syndrome - in 2003. That outbreak killed 44 people.

"When you deal with SARS, you have to watch the people you work with, when you've done nothing different, and then they get sick," Scott said, "and you see their family come in, and then they die, and then you have to treat that person and their family, and you think it could have been you because you were right beside that person. True story. It just haunts you. I don't want people to have to got through that. That's why it was important to me."

"An exercise like this breaks down the silos," Mazurik said. "They deal with resource shortages, which we face all the time, and they talk to each other about how to increase capacity and start to think creatively and innovatively."

Keewatin Air respiratory therapist Paul Wiebe saw the value in discussing how to prepare for an air crash involving 80 people.

"There's a feeling of anxiety. You get on the edge," Wiebe said, describing what it's like to hear you're needed to help. "We were called to go up (for the 2011 Resolute crash), but the military was already there and brought the few survivors down to us, and we ferried them to Ottawa. We are prepared, but I personally have never dealt with anything like this."

Even those not working on the front lines were happy to take part.

Elisapee Flaherty works as an interpreter at the emergency department on weekends.

"It gives me a head of thinking, Oh, this might happen, so I can be prepared to help somebody or the staff in the future," said Flaherty, whose family was among those relocated to the High Arctic. "The plane crash that happened in Resolute, that really scared me. In the High Arctic, it's always a challenge to go up there, especially during the fall season because there's more fog and wind. We have to always be prepared and support each other."

The table reserved for government, which would take the lead on any real disaster, was vacant until volunteers filled their spots. Scott said that despite invitations, no one from the Government of Nunavut or City of Iqaluit showed.

"I wish we had more support on top, in terms of government officials, at this event," Scott said. "We would still continue with or without them. It would be nice to have them here so we can find out what resources they do have that they would be able to send to everybody else."

Nunavut Emergency Management spokesperson Hillary Casey said no one in her department, Community and Government Services, received an invitation. Casey said NEM, which managed the recent Pangnirtung power plant fire crisis, participates in such exercises regularly across Nunavut, including Operation Nanook.

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