Mr. Chairman, the surplus and deficit policy allows the boards that are in a surplus situation to hold on to 50 per cent of that surplus. At one point all the money used to be returned to the department. Of course, there are a number of health authorities that are doing okay or holding surpluses. There are a few that are into a deficit, and the two major ones are Stanton and the Beaufort-Delta Health and Social Services Authority.
A serious question we have to address, even going forward, is: what is the expectation? Right now I think a lot of not only authorities but also people of the Northwest Territories feel that health care is an important or crucial element of delivery in the Northwest Territories, to the point where we fund the programs and continue to fund health authorities to keep their operations going.
We’re at the stage now in the Northwest Territories where we can’t afford to let these situations continue to grow. There’s a need to deal with that, and the Department of Health and Social Services has been putting a plan together dealing with the authorities and reviewing it.
Questions we have to ask ourselves in these areas are, for example: Stanton being the territorial facility, if other authorities are unable to provide a service because they’re unable to find the right mix of doctors and nurses in the other facilities, do they send a larger load to the Stanton facility to take care of that? That is something we also have to look into as we proceed with this ongoing work.