Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Maybe I could get the Minister to make reservations for dinner for him and I sometime. I’ve got a number of things that immediately come to mind when we’re talking about health and social services and ways that things could be improved upon. I would never say that we should be pulling millions of dollars out of the system. My belief is we have to be putting more money into the system. We have to be budgeting accordingly. That I believe fully in.
I also believe, like my colleagues, that I would stack our system up against any system in the country. That’s not really the problem. The problem that I see and the way that I think we could fix things immediately is if we take a look at the eight existing authorities. When you’re trying to manage anything,
the more moving parts you have it only stands to reason that it’s going to cost you more money, there’s going to be duplication. This is exactly where the government needs to start when it comes to managing and maximizing each and every dollar that we have earmarked for health care here in this Territory. We could still have boards out there that could be advisory boards rather than management boards. We could move them towards an advisory capacity and that would, in my mind, save us a tremendous amount of money on an annual basis. Start there.
The other thing is efficiencies. We really need to get a handle on missed medical appointments and the cost that missed medical appointments are having on our system, whether it’s for surgeries or for somebody who has the flu and misses an appointment downtown at one of our clinics or at the health centre. That costs money. Every time somebody misses an appointment it costs money. It got me thinking: Why don’t we have more of a concerted effort by staff at our health facilities to be calling people a day or two before their scheduled appointment just as a reminder? When I go to the dentist they’re making me appointments for months out and sure enough a couple days before I have that dentist appointment, they’re on the phone calling me and leaving me messages reminding me that I have an appointment. I think that in itself will save us a tremendous amount of money. Time is money, especially when you’re dealing with doctors and health care professionals. We can’t afford to be having hundreds of missed appointments on an annual basis at one clinic. We just can’t afford that.
The other thing too -- and I had a discussion with Ms. Lee about this the other day -- is on bulk purchasing. I know the Minister says we’re out in front of this, we’re spearheading our involvement with the western provinces, but the information that I have is that Alberta and British Columbia have already signed a deal. They’re already doing something together. There’s this New West Partnership between Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatchewan where they’re looking at bulk purchasing. The Minister says we’ve signed an MOU. I asked her the other day if we’re involved in this are we actually today making purchases under that arrangement, bulk purchases under that arrangement to help our escalating costs. The Minister was very evasive when it came to answering that question. She said, oh, we’re involved, we’re doing all these great things. The question was: Are we actually making a difference by bulk purchasing medical supplies and goods? She didn’t have an answer for that.
There are four ideas. The Minister wants some ideas, I’ve given him four. I can give him more when he books that reservation for dinner.
