Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. St. Germaine. I am not too sure how the funding is distributed amongst the authorities in terms of purchasing equipment. It should be a standard at least. Health centres have the equipment. Right now, they don't have the basic medical equipment for cardiac patients in the region. I don't know if priority is not given to them, or they just lack the funding, or the inventory is not kept up to date. Basic stretchers in the community...They have these boards, I don't know if they call them stretchers, but they don't have them in some of our centres. Are our own authorities not getting on with the programs in terms of basic equipment or the health department or just not
enough money to go through the various different boards to purchase them. I am encouraged by Mr. St. Germaine saying about bulk purchasing of equipment and other things, but there is something out of whack here that we just don't have cardiac monitors in the Sahtu, or IV pumps. Bad weather sometimes doesn't allow emergency planes to land. It's a good thing we have these nurses who are trained in these emergency situations, and we put them in some pretty hairy situations.
I appreciate what the Minister is saying. I appreciate what the staff is saying in terms of purchasing. I think that some basic things need to be put in our community. I am not too sure how that gets sorted out, Mr. Minister. I understand what you are saying, I just don't know where the gap is in communication. There are dollars, but I don't know if they are being spent in the right area. I want to let the Minister know the nurses in the communities are doing a wonderful job with the resources they have. Sometimes they are asking for something that doesn't seem to get to the authorities or powers that be to say we need cardiac monitors, we need IV pumps, we need defibrillators, we need some decent stretchers to help us with our job. That must be a challenge for the Minister to work with the boards. I believe that's something that can be and should be an automatic medical standard in our communities, Mr. Chair. I want to leave it at that and see if the Minister will make some comments to see how we can improve our situation. Thank you.