Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, I think we are looking at it, and in any reviews of dealing with medical facilities in communities, all these things will be taken into consideration, whether it is more cost effective to establish in that hospital the medical procedure or level of treatment that will be more cost effective, doing it in the community, or sending persons on to other facilities that already offer that. I think it is something we are looking at and it is something I
instructed the department to do, to see what resources are in a community and what can be attracted to a community to utilize facilities in a community that are already existing.
I cannot identify the exact total of the exact costs associated, or what the people went out for, but there will continue to be, for the foreseeable future, a necessity for medical travel. There are things we cannot attract to the Territories, no matter what the population; even Yellowknife is having difficulty in attracting all the medical facilities that we can to operate independently. We still have to use Edmonton, and the Keewatin still has to use Manitoba, and the Baffin still has to use Ontario and Quebec, because there are procedures in medical treatment that cannot be done in the NWT because of the low volume and the high cost. Although we are spending a lot of money on transportation, medical travel, it still would cost more to have facilities here in the Territories unutilized.
As I explained earlier on about the CT scan, to bring that equipment into the Territories and to use that equipment here, we would have to attract people from all over Canada to ever make it profitable. So it is a necessity to use equipment and facilities and treatment programs that are established in the larger centres, Edmonton and Calgary, university hospitals, where it is more available, where, because of the numbers of people using it, it is more economical. It is cheaper for us to buy that, even if it costs money to send people there.
Some of these costs are associated with costs that are unforeseen. The increase in travel costs over the last year has added to this financial burden we are faced with. So it is not always practical to have all of the treatment available because of the associated costs. The same thing would apply to the smaller communities. But these things are being looked at, and in any reviews that we do, we will have to take that into consideration.
