Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I understand that this allocation is to address the various deficits in the operating budgets of some of the health authorities. Several are in financial deficit; several are not. This is not a new happening. This is something that has been happening with health authorities for a number of years.
In the past there was some level of participation sought from health authorities when they were in deficits to work with the government in terms of a recovery plan. I can think of one time when the health authority was expected to work with the government to come up with 50 per cent of the deficit over a period of time. The problem with that occurs when you get into this level of deficit and then with the forced growth and the continuing pressures on the government to provide seemingly an ever-expanding number of services, pharmaceuticals, competitive wages, salaries and benefits for our human resources component of the health system. There are just so many challenges that I won’t go into naming them all; we know what they are.
If we did seek some kind of participation in the recovery process, I can’t see that doing anything but putting more pressure on the delivery system. The last thing you want to do is do things that would impose hardship on the patients and the clients our services are meant to serve.
I’d like to ask about this. What are we doing to analyze why we are getting into this level of deficit with some health authorities? Some are in good shape, some are breaking even and some have surpluses. What are we doing in terms of analyzing why the situation is occurring? Either we are perhaps underfunding the health authorities, or perhaps it has something to do with the management of the funds we do provide to them. I’d like to know from the Minister what we’re doing to try and address the causes of such a substantive deficit.