Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to follow up on what Mrs. Groenewegen is talking about. In the smaller communities, it's very difficult with regard to some of the decisions that are made at the local level in the nursing stations. I will give you an example, Madam Chair, of what happened last year and what happened just recently with regard to the decisions the nurses are making with regard to patients. Last year in October, there was a case where there was a young person feeling a lot of pain for about four days. During those four days, Madam Chair, we brought this individual to the local health centre. All they were saying is they had a pulled muscle from playing sports. What happened eventually is after about a week, the nurses in the community sat down and said what is wrong with this young person. It just so happened at that time, Madam Chair, on a weekend, they finally decided to send him to Inuvik. During the pain of this young fellow, he ended up having appendicitis, which eventually burst just when he got to the hospital in Inuvik. Cases like that are very difficult for nurses. How can nurses diagnose things like that when they can't even see there's a problem? It's a concern to the smaller communities.
Another incident I heard about just recently, Madam Chair, is with regard to the same situation where the patient had appendicitis. What happened was they brought the patient to Inuvik with a taxicab that is a medical service. You know, that's a good two-and-a-half hour drive. There is something wrong with people.
The question I had, Madam Chair, is how well versed are the nurse practitioners to diagnose situations like that? They can call the hospital in Inuvik and find out information, but at what point in time can a nurse make decisions with regard to problems a patient might have? Thank you.