Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I wanted to ask the Minister a little bit about what his assessment is of the viability of some of our hospitals operating here now. I don't know what kind of utilization rates when they're doing this review of infrastructure are being put together for the facilities, but it seems to me that -- I suppose I'm most familiar with the hospital in Hay River, so I'll use that as an example -- there's a lot more referring of patients who are ill to other medical facilities than there used to be. It seems like certainly the maternity aspect service of the hospitals is gone. That is partly I know due to the fact that a lot of general practitioners do not want to deliver babies now for whatever reason. It seems to me that in years past there were more serious illnesses that were just dealt with right there with the medical staff that they had. Then we went through the doctor shortage and the locums and it seemed like people got into more of a mindset of everybody going into survival mode; we'll do the best we can with what we've got. It didn't seem like after the doctor situation got addressed and we got staffed up again that we ever reverted to sort of a full service hospital, for lack of a better term.
So I don't really know why that is and I don't know if the numbers bear it out, but it seems like there's a lot more cases of assess and transfer, whether it's to Yellowknife or to Edmonton. I don't know if the Minister can help me quantify or qualify whether or not that is the truth, but that is what seems to be the case. It seems like people who have cancer and need chemo always go someplace else for it. It's not administered at a local level anymore where it certainly used to be. The hospital used to be full of patients and now it isn't. What's happened? Has the ability of medical doctors and nurses to treat patients with critical illness somehow diminished and we've become more reliant and think we have to refer everyone to a specialist now?
I think back to the days when I came to Hay River 30 years ago and they delivered babies, they did surgeries, they treated people with cancer, they did all kinds of things. But now it seems like there's a much higher incidence of referral. I have heard it also said that some days with the number of people going into Edmonton that they wonder if Stanton is open on that day. Now here's a centralization of all of the specialists and yet it still seems like there's a lot of referring. Is there any historical data to bear out what I'm saying or is this an incorrect perception? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.