Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today, I would like to talk about the tremendous contribution being made by the CT scan machine at the Stanton hospital in serving every resident in the Northwest Territories, as well as the hundreds of thousands of dollars it is saving the Government of the Northwest Territories and the taxpayers.
As you are well aware, Mr. Speaker, this machine was purchased with the $2.3 million raised by the Stanton Hospital Foundation about three years ago. We were also fortunate to obtain a mammography and two colour ultrasound machines at the same time.
In its very short life, the statistics on the performance of this machine are absolutely astounding. I have learned that the machine has seen about 3,000 people and has taken approximately 1.2 million images. I am also advised that the cost of each visit, or a person seen by this machine, is calculated at between $500 and $800.
Mr. Speaker, before we had this machine, we had to send out residents to Edmonton or other centres to get the CT scans done. The simple math will tell us that just in cost savings for the actual procedure of taking the images, we have saved upwards of $1.5 million. If we added the cost of travel, accommodations and incidentals that Health would have paid to send all these people south, we are talking about millions in savings. This machine has paid for itself over and over again. It is the money from the private residents and corporate donors that has made this possible.
Mr. Speaker, I have also learned that about 10 to 15 percent of the work being done with this scan machine is done on behalf of the Government of Nunavut, which is billed back to the Government of Nunavut. All in all, this has become a cash cow for the government, probably adding to its current surplus.
Mr. Speaker, I am afraid I must report the less than perfect ending to this story. I have also learned there is only one person funded to run this machine, and only one person has been doing it since its inception. I do not know of any other position in the Territories that places such a burden on one person.
Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, I have learned that there is no program or resources in place at the moment that would provide for training of additional people to operate this machine, other than the very basic...