The committee met with the Minister and her officials on Wednesday, April 2, 2008, and Thursday, April 3, 2008, to review the Draft Main Estimates for the Department of Health and Social Services.
Committee members made note that the department is proposing to spend $309.822 million in operations expenses and $32.414 million on capital projects in the fiscal year 2008–2009. We would like to thank the Minister and her officials for appearing before the committee and responding to the committee’s questions and concerns.
Committee members offer the following comments on issues arising out of the review of the 2008–2009 Main Estimates.
Nurse Practitioners
Members of the committee are very concerned with how nurse practitioners are being utilized in NWT hospitals and how they are being integrated into the NWT health care system.
It is understood that all nurse practitioners who have had their education, or upgrading, paid for or subsidized by the department could be employed in front-line positions at community health centres. There are a number of nurse practitioner positions that have been funded on an ad hoc basis and utilized one-time federal funding pots. These positions have been acknowledged to reduce hospital stays and associated costs and to improve patient outcomes. The department and health authorities should be using nurse practitioners to improve patient outcomes throughout the NWT health care system and make the necessary program and funding decisions to best utilize our nursing resources. It may also be necessary to re-profile existing vacant nursing positions to accomplish this goal.
Committee members were aware that considerable expense was incurred between the cost of training and the development of enabling legislation and an implementation plan. It is time to follow through. We expect to discuss the use of nurse practitioners and
review a definite implementation plan during the review of the 2009–2012 business plans in September 2008.
Telehealth and Medical Travel Policy
It is noted from examining forced-growth figures in previous Main Estimates and supplementary appropriations that medical travel costs are increasing at an alarming rate. Some of these costs — like increases in airfare and charter costs because of the rising price of aircraft fuel — are outside of the control of the Department of Health and Social Services. The areas where the department can control costs are related to the number of patients using medical travel and the frequency of that travel. Members of the committee believe that wherever possible, the use of Telehealth to consult with other health care professionals is preferable and more cost-efficient than sending patients on medical travel.
In order for this to occur, it is important that Telehealth programs in the two territorial hospitals be delivered in a coordinated and focused manor. For this reason, the committee recommended that the two Telehealth coordinator positions —one at Stanton and one at the Inuvik hospital — be retained.
The committee was pleased that the department reinstated the Telehealth coordinator in Inuvik; however, committee members remain concerned that even though there may be qualified persons to operate the Telehealth equipment at the Stanton Territorial Hospital, without a person and a coordination role the equipment may not be utilized to its full potential. Committee members will be tracking the usage of Telehealth through the business-planning and results-reporting processes.
Mr. Chair, I’d like to hand it over to my colleague Ms. Bisaro to continue with the report.