Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. St. Germaine.
Debates of March 23rd, 2004
This is page numbers 183 - 236 of the Hansard for the 15th Assembly, 3rd Session. The original version can be accessed on the Legislative Assembly's website or by contacting the Legislative Assembly Library. The word of the day was health.
Topics
Revert To Item 20: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
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Revert To Item 20: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
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St. Germaine
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Capital Health Authority agreement hasn't been renewed for the current year so we're projecting at current rates. That will be offset and is hard to predict with the change in the utilization.
Revert To Item 20: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
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Revert To Item 20: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
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Sandy Lee Range Lake
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Put it another way, could the Minister advise as to how much we paid to the Capital Health Authority last year and how much he expects to pay this year? Thank you.
Revert To Item 20: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
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Michael Miltenberger Thebacha
Mr. Chairman, we paid approximately $10 million last year and we anticipate there will be some increase. There's a new contract that has been negotiated and there's an agreed to process and increases that we have to talk to the Capital Health Authority about. Thank you.
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Sandy Lee Range Lake
Yes, Mr. Chairman. My apologies. I shouldn't ask the Minister to see or forecast the future here. Maybe I should ask him for how much he paid to the Capital Health Authority the year before; not for 2003-2004, but 2002-2003.
Revert To Item 20: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
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Revert To Item 20: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
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Michael Miltenberger Thebacha
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Last year we negotiated for the first time in I think it was almost five years, with the Capital Health Authority. The contract, once again we don't have that level of detail. I think it was in the neighbourhood of $6 million. Given the length of time since the last negotiation, it went up and we changed the contract format and how billing is done to better reflect current realities. But it's about $10 million last year and we anticipate there will be some increase once we finish negotiations for the coming year. Thank you.
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Sandy Lee Range Lake
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Is the Minister able to say with certainty that increase of $4 million to the Capital Health Authority is as a result of changes in contract and not due to change in the use of services?
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Michael Miltenberger Thebacha
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Once again I'll let Mr. St. Germaine give you the detail, but it was a very detailed negotiation where they had extensive statistics over usage and utilization and I think there's also a switch in billing, as opposed to a fee-for-bed as a fee for a specific kind of service that you were receiving and they were all priced differently. I'll let Mr. St. Germaine speak to that. He was involved in the negotiations.
Revert To Item 20: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
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St. Germaine
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. When we renegotiated the contract the price structure changed significantly to reflect the type of patients that were being treated from the Northwest Territories. Typically they were patients requiring higher care and the cost to treat them and maintain them was much higher than the average bed rate that we were paying at the time, which was approximately $930. Now we're paying a differential rate depending on whether it's ICU or other wards and so on. So rates ranged from anywhere from $1,000 to $1,700 a day depending on what patient need is. Over the intervening period, the actual number of patients staying on an in-patient basis at the Capital Health Authority have gone down. What has gone on is the price has gone up significantly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Revert To Item 20: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
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Sandy Lee Range Lake
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for that info. Going back to the $8 million under expenses for Nunavut, I'm not clear about that because I would have thought that we would actually be getting money from Nunavut. I was under the understanding that we provide services to them. So could I get more information on what this $8 million expense is? Thank you.
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Michael Miltenberger Thebacha
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have a fairly interesting billing process. What happens is we negotiate with Nunavut and the money comes to us and then goes into Stanton's budget. So this would be reflected in Stanton's revenue that they earn for providing the service to Nunavut.
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Sandy Lee Range Lake
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm still not clear on that. So the money gets written up as a revenue at the hospital, but as an expense in the department. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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St. Germaine
Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. There's also an $8 million revenue item in the department's revenue portion of the budget. There's $8 million coming into the GNWT consolidated revenue fund. As that money comes into the government's coffers we make payments to Stanton hospital for the services they provide to Nunavut patients. It's a bit of a flow-through from the department to the authority. Thank you.
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