Expectant mom in Norman Wells wins medical travel appeal for funding
Chelsey Bjornson will be able to give birth in Fort Smith and the costs will be covered
An expectant mother in Norman Wells, N.W.T., has won her appeal for medical travel funding to deliver her baby in Fort Smith.
Pregnant women in small N.W.T. communities must deliver in one of two designated birthing centres — Inuvik or Yellowknife — but Chelsey Bjornson wants to deliver her first child in Fort Smith, where she has family.
Bjornson, 24, previously told CBC that she requested that N.W.T. medical travel pay for her flight to Yellowknife and she would cover the costs to Fort Smith, but she said the department refused.
Now, she says her flights to and from Yellowknife will be covered by the health department. Bjornson said she cried when she learned her appeal had been granted on Thursday.
Bjornson, a truck driver, said she was equally moved when her employer offered to pay for her flight to Fort Smith, after reading about her plight in the news.
Bjornson did not want to give birth in Yellowknife, where she'd have to spend several weeks in a shared room at a medical boarding home.
She's due to give birth at the end of November in Fort Smith, where she hopes to deliver with midwives at the local health centre.