Thank you, Mr. Chair. We discussed this somewhat yesterday, but I think it needs to be reiterated; the points need to be made again. It’s important that we don’t reduce our Telehealth coordinator positions any more than they already have been. The department originally reduced these coordinators to one coordinator in Inuvik. I believe firmly that we need to have a coordinator position at Stanton as well as one at the hospital in Inuvik. I also believe the use of Telehealth will have an impact on the cost of medical travel for our residents. I think I said the other day I can’t quite believe the amount of money we spend on medical travel. I can only see that Telehealth, and the extension of Telehealth, is going to make inroads on this huge expense we have for medical travel and moving people around from communities to see doctors, for consults and so on.
The coordinator position is valuable in that it will encourage staff in health centres and regional hospitals to use the equipment more, to make it a standard in the way they operate, so that it simply becomes part of their daily work. I think that without a coordinator, without somebody to take the idea — the action — in hand and actually promote it; to visit people, encourage them and provide support to them; this is not going to go forward. I see that Telehealth and this particular program are going to be of benefit to us. It’s definitely going to reduce our costs in terms of medical travel, and I think it’s also going to make it better for people in the communities, in that they won’t have to be constantly travelling from a community to a larger centre to see a health specialist. So that said, this is why I’ve made that motion.