Report details confusion and 'risky' efforts to move care home residents during 2023 Yellowknife evacuation

A report looking at how Yellowknife's AVENS long-term care home was evacuated during last year's wildfire emergency paints a picture of confusion, crumbled plans, and sometimes "risky" efforts to move vulnerable seniors onto aircraft using baggage carts.

The report, titled "AVENS and the 2023 Wildfire Evacuations," was obtained by CBC News through an access-to-information request and it contains many troubling details about the evacuation of the facility in August 2023. Recommendations included in the report were shared publicly by AVENS last January.

Among other things, the report describes how most AVENS staff had left Yellowknife immediately after the city-wide evacuation order was declared, leaving barely enough staff at the facility to care for residents and ensure they were safely moved out of the city.

AVENS CEO Daryl Dolynny described it as a "skeletal" crew that was left to manage the emergency evacuation for dozens of residents.

According to a post-evacuation review AVENS shared with the government, part of the reason for staff shortages was that AVENS didn't have any way to communicate with staff other than through email.

At the time of the evacuation, there were 57 long-term care residents at AVENS, including some who were receiving specialized care for dementia or had serious mobility challenges.

The report states that AVENS staff didn't learn they would be responsible for moving their residents during an evacuation until about two weeks before the order was issued. Prior to that, the AVENS emergency plan contained no provisions for evacuations.

When CBC asked Dolynny what the cause of the uncertainty was, he said it was an "assumption" based on the fact that AVENS is contracted by the territorial health authority to care for long-term care patients only at their own facility. Staff had assumed that in the case of an evacuation, the health authority would be in charge.

Confusion during evacuation

Before Yellowknife was evacuated, AVENS staff had sourced potential flights for the long-term care home residents, temporary hotel accommodations and security in Edmonton, and transportation to and from evacuation flights. But when the evacuation actually happened, many of those plans fell through.

When AVENS staff tried to schedule evacuation flights on Aug. 16, 2023, hours before the city-wide evacuation order was officially declared, they were told the agreement would be voided by the territorial state of emergency and they would then need to go through the territory's Emergency Management Organization (EMO) after all.

Those in charge at the EMO eventually connected AVENS staff with the Canadian Armed Forces which secured a C-130 Hercules plane for the evacuation on the afternoon of Aug. 17.

But getting residents from the AVENS facility to the plane took over six hours that day, partly because the City of Yellowknife was not able to provide access to transit buses as promised.

There were also "real challenges and safety risks" in getting the residents onto the Hercules plane, the report says, as there was "no proper equipment for loading residents with mobility challenges."

The Hercules did not end up lifting off until after midnight and the AVENS residents arrived in Edmonton at around 2:30 a.m. when, the report states, "some residents had to endure another long wait" on Leduc city buses while issues with the hotel bookings were sorted out.

After the evacuation order was lifted weeks later, AVENS residents returned to Yellowknife over several days on Dash-7 passenger planes. But the city's airstrip didn't have specialized equipment to load long-term residents with mobility issues. 

As a result, some residents had to be loaded into the aircraft on baggage carts and physically carried onto planes by AVENS staff, a process described in the report as "extremely uncomfortable and risky" for residents.

Residents were at risk, expert says

The AVENS evacuation could have been a significant health risk to long-term care residents or staff, according to one expert.

"I can tell you, you won't find a luggage cart in a hospital, you won't find it in a care home. It's not something we would use to transport someone safely," said Dr. Samir Sinha, a geriatrics specialist and researcher with the University Health Network in Toronto. Sinha also works with the Red Cross in Canada and the U.S. on research and policy related to emergency preparedness for seniors. 

He said long waits and frequent moves between different locations during the evacuation could also be harmful to vulnerable elders, especially those who might have dementia. 

AVENS did follow some of the best practices identified through Sinha's work for the Red Cross: all patients were provided with a go-bag which included important medications and health information, and the organization had a clear plan for where to go and how they would travel there.

But he said much of what went wrong during the AVENS evacuation could and should have been prevented through better planning on the part of AVENS and local and territorial governments.

Preparing for future evacuations

Dolynny insists that although the circumstances of the evacuation were far from ideal, AVENS residents were safe at all times.

"At no time were our residents ever in a precarious situation," he told CBC News. "Maybe in an uncomfortable wait time, yes, but always cared for."

He says he is deeply proud of the work staff and leaders did at AVENS to evacuate residents and set up care for them, with limited time and resources, in a new jurisdiction.

He also said the organization has made many changes since last year to better prepare for future emergencies — but he ultimately believes that AVENS should have gotten much more support from the territorial government. He said some of what AVENS was asked to do during the evacuation, such as negotiating directly with Alberta Health Services for resources, just wasn't feasible for a non-profit to do.

Jay Boast, a spokesperson for the territory's department of Municipal and Community Affairs, defended the territorial government's actions during the AVENS evacuation.

"Did we learn lessons, and could we have done better? I think that is clear, but I think it is in the context of an event that had never happened in history before," he said.

"That shouldn't be lost in the context of how things have unfolded."

Boast said that since last year, the N.W.T. government has created a new emergency plan that's intended to avoid any confusion about the division of responsibilities in emergencies.

The Northwest Territories Health and Social Services Authority has also confirmed that if there were ever another city evacuation, it will take the lead on moving AVENS long-term care residents and finding beds for them in Alberta.