Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My question is similar to Mr. Steen's. There seems to be a lot of concerns, especially with cancer patients, that they seem to be evaluated when it's too late. They find out that they have cancer and, by that time, it's pretty well a foregone conclusion that they'll pass on. No offence to the doctors or the nurses, but I wonder if there's a method that we could use. You mentioned in your statement about the new technology of being able to use satellites and communicate with other doctors in other areas; Yellowknife or wherever. It seems like a lot of these patients go to the hospital time and time again, complaining that they feel sick, they give them medicine, send them home and they come back a week or a month later and the same complaints are there. By the time they determine that there may be something wrong, the individual is sent to Yellowknife or wherever. At that time is when they're evaluated as having cancer. It seems to be a real concern in a lot of the smaller communities; finding a new method to catch this thing prior to having a long time frame passing. I don't know what the methods are for determining cancer, but X-rays used to be how they used to do it in the past. It could be mandatory that once these people go there, instead of just giving them pills, you take an X-ray and you send it out and hope it will catch the disease instead of it carrying on for a couple of months before it is evaluated. Maybe the Minister or one of your colleagues could help me out here, to try to find a new way of dealing with people's complaints and also dealing with the whole question of cancer.
David Krutko on Bill 11: Appropriation Act, 1996-97
In the Legislative Assembly on May 17th, 1996. See this statement in context.
Bill 11: Appropriation Act, 1996-97
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
May 16th, 1996
Page 491
See context to find out what was said next.