Nova Scotia’s health minister is defending the government’s decision to release details of changes to the LifeFlight service nearly a month after they happened.

In Question Period on Tuesday, Leo Glavine was asked why a news release about the changes was sent out on April 29, when the changes took place nearly a month earlier, on April 1.

Glavine said government wanted to ensure a contingency plan was in place.

"We wanted to make sure that that system was going to be absolutely performed in the strongest manner, and that there would be no interruptions of care,” Glavine said in Question Period.

In the news release, the Department of Health said that due to “a recent change in Transport Canada policy,” the LifeFlight helicopter is no longer allowed to land on helipads at the Halifax Infirmary, the IWK Health Centre and the Digby General Hospital. Instead, the flights will land at alternate locations – at Point Pleasant Park in Halifax and the Digby airport – and patients will be taken by ground transportation to hospital.

In Halifax a new mobile critical care unit has been dispatched to carry out the transfers, but in Digby patients will be moved by a regular ambulance.

Glavine said since the changes took effect on April 1, 25 LifeFlights have landed at the alternate sites. He says 17 of those transfers were “time-sensitive,” and patient care was not compromised.

In the meantime, the Department of Health is looking into acquiring a new helicopter. The current chopper, a Sikorsky S-76A that was built in 1980, is owned by Canadian Helicopters Ltd. The Nova Scotia government and EHS lease the aircraft for an estimated $3.6 million per year.

In order to meet Transport Canada’s certification standards for rooftop helipads in urban areas, the new chopper must have been built in the 1990s or later, EHS says.

In a telephone conversation on Monday, a spokesperson for EHS said that acquiring a new helicopter for this service has been a long-term goal of Canadian Helicopters Ltd. for some time.

The government says this news came as a shock.

“The air ambulance never came up as an issue, in terms of anything that wasn't meeting standards and compliance,” Glavine said Monday.

“I certainly had absolutely zero awareness that standards had changed and there would be new requirements.”

But in an email to CTV News, Transport Canada says its standards have not changed.

“On April 1, 2016, Transport Canada questioned Canadian Helicopters Ltd. (CHL) about the capacity of their Sikorsky S-76A helicopter to meet the performance requirements to operate in and out of certain heliports located in densely-populated areas. The operator voluntarily decided to temporarily suspend its operations to these three heliports: QEII Health Sciences Centre, IWK Health Centre and the Digby General Hospital.

“Transport Canada inspectors conduct audits of small aviation companies across Canada on a regular basis, according to an annual calendar, to ensure compliance with Canadian Aviation Regulations and standards. Our systems and inspectors continuously ensure that operators meet the safety standards.

“Transport Canada continues to monitor the situation with CHL closely and will consider any specific request that would provide the equivalent level of safety in conformity with the existing standards.”

The apparent confusion has the opposition calling for better communication.

“People want to know that their different levels of government are working together and not taking them by surprise,” said Nova Scotia Progressive Conservative Leader Jamie Baillie.

For patients in Halifax and Digby, it will mean an extra 15 minutes of travel time.

Emergency room doctor and LifeFlight medical director Dr. George Kovacs says that’s not ideal.

“In a small group of patients, those minutes can count,” he said. “Really unfortunately, we're sometimes placed in a situation such as this where there's not really anything that we can do about it.”

With files from CTV Atlantic's Sarah Ritchie