Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said in my Member’s statement today, I have questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services. This has to do with the delivery of specialist care, specialist services to residents of the Northwest Territories.
Mr. Speaker, I fully understand and applaud the department for attempting to attract, recruit and retain specialists of various disciplines here in the Northwest Territories. It makes sense. However, Mr. Speaker, the truth of the matter is that specialists are sometimes available here in the North and sometimes not.
In the last several weeks in Hay River I’ve had two constituents who had been seen for a long period of time by a specialist in the south who was a neurologist, because most of these constituents have MS and this is a chronic condition, which properly managed and monitored can go into remission and can be substantively, even held at a certain level for a period of time. One of the negative contributing factors to a condition like MS is stress, and when a patient has had a longstanding relationship with a doctor, they know their case, they are trusted by the patient and this creates some stability for that patient.
So in both of these instances, kind of on the eve of medical travel to go to Edmonton to see their specialist, they were informed that their medical travel was denied because there was now a neurologist available to see them in Yellowknife. This does not seem like a good way to manage this and I’m asking the Minister of Health today is there a different way we can do this so that we avoid this kind of stress for these patients? Thank you.