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Sudbury News: Hope Air lands in Sudbury as advocacy for provincial funding continues

Watch the full article on Sudbury News

Filling a key gap in universal health care, Hope Air has been flying Canadians to medical appointments free of charge for 40 years.

The charitable organization stopped by the Greater Sudbury Airport on Aug. 14 during its final day of a two-week tour of Eastern Canada raising awareness and funding for the organization, called the Give Hope Wings Expedition.

Among those to speak at the Northern Aviation Services hangar was Sudburian Melissa Cutler, whose eight-year-old daughter, Ainsley, was born premature and has faced medical issues.

The two connected with Hope Air approximately three years ago to help Ainsley access specialized treatment in Toronto and have since taken approximately 10 trips.

“They help with everything,” Melissa said. “We’d have to pay for a flight, accommodations, and they cover all of that. … We don’t have to pay for anything when we go there.”

A single mother, Melissa said that when she learned Ainsley needed special treatment at the SickKids’ MAGIC clinic in Toronto, she didn’t think she’d be able to afford the trips.

“They broke a lot of barriers for us,” she said of Hope Air.

The charitable organization deals with everything, from costs to bookings, which she said alleviates a great deal of stress amid what’s already a stressful situation.

Hope Air supports patients from more than 700 communities across Canada and has handled more than 200,000 travel arrangements for Canadians seeking medical treatment.

Last year alone, it delivered approximately 3,200 trips in Northern Ontario, Chief Hope Officer Mark Rubinstein told Sudbury.com, noting that within Northern Ontario, “Sudbury is, every year, the No. 1 or No. 2 community of service where we’re asked to come and get people, usually down to Toronto, but sometimes Ottawa and other hospitals.”

In Sudbury, he said, “You don’t have to look too far to find someone who had to go to Toronto where more-advanced care is available.”

Although he said “virtually every province in Canada” supports the organization with funding, Ontario is an outlier.

“In Ontario we’re not there yet,” Rubinstein said during his public remarks. “We don’t have a government, unfortunately, that believes in the principle of what universal health care means, so we continue to fight that battle and demonstrate why it’s so important.”

This has been a longstanding point of advocacy among Greater Sudbury’s NDP MPPs, both of whom expressed support for the organization during the Aug. 14 event.

During her public remarks, Nickel Belt MPP France Gélinas commended Hope Air for bringing “equity of access,” after which Sudbury MPP Jamie West told Sudbury.com that advocacy for provincial funding is ongoing.

“I can’t imagine why the premier wouldn’t want to show up next to a Hope Air banner with a cheque,” West told Sudbury.com.

Hope Air primarily offers commercial flights free of charge, but also manages a network of volunteer pilots with smaller aircraft when commercial flights aren’t available, including approximately 35 in Ontario. In some cases, immunocompromised patients can’t make use of public flights, which also necessitates the use of private flights.

Several airports, including the Greater Sudbury Airport, waive fees associated with airport use.

Following a mid-day event at the Northern Aviation Services hangar, Hope Air was slated to host an invitation-only fundraising event at Science North.

In addition to awareness, the two-week Give Hope Wings Expedition set out to raise approximately $400,000, and by mid-day Aug. 14, Rubinstein said they’d exceeded $300,000.

For more information on Hope Air, including how to donate to the charitable organization, visit hopeair.ca.