Thank you, Ms. Lee. I’d like to welcome the witnesses to the House. When we left last time we were on page 8-21 in the Department of Health and Social Services. So we’ll return to page 8-21. Is committee agreed?

Page 8-21, Health and Social Services, activity summary, health services programs, operations expenditure summary, $188.658 million.

We’ll now move along to page 8-22, Health and Social Services, activity summary, health services programs, grants and contributions, grants, $40,000.

Page 8-22, Health and Social Services, activity summary, health services programs, grants and contributions, contributions, $145.171 million.

Page 8-22, Health and Social Services, activity summary, health services programs, grants and contributions, total grants and contributions, $145.211 million.

We’ll now move along to page 8-25, Health and Social Services, supplementary health programs. Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a question for the Minister on medical travel. I just wanted to give a little bit of a background on some of the stuff that you’re dealing with at the community level. I’m trying to see if the Minister would look at putting some sort of flexibility into the Medical Travel Policy or the medical travel benefit, I guess it is.

What’s happening is people are facing some hardships. We have experienced in the past and we continue to experience situations where people are sick or injured and have to remain in hospital, whether it be in Yellowknife or Edmonton. Medical travel will support one individual to support the person and depending on the nature of the sickness or the injury, I find that more than one individual is needed in order to provide proper support to individuals.

I’m wondering if the Minister could give me some assurance that the department would look at something on a case-by-case basis, I suppose, where I currently have a situation where I think that even a young man is seriously injured in a car accident and the family, even the mother and father, need to support each other and need to be with him, but medical travel is fairly restrictive as to who can provide assistance. It’s kind of like looking at these things on a case-by-case basis, not trying to get a bunch of people to go travel with someone unnecessarily. I understand that. This is very important to families. Of course, there’s low income as well.

I’m wondering if, I guess to be really specific with my question, based on income, will the Minister or department look at providing a benefit to more than just one individual in situations where a person is seriously injured or sick.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The flexibility that the Member is suggesting would be a policy change and I think what we need is we want to be clear about our policies. If we want to change the policy, we should change them. Adding a flexibility makes it too difficult for staff in the system to administer.

What the Member is speaking to is a compassionate medical escort and a compassionate escort is not provided for under our policy. We are reviewing our Medical Travel Policy right now including an escort issue, because we are inundated every day with families who would like us to assist more. We as a Legislature have to make decisions on that and how much money we are willing to invest on that, because the needs and demands would increase.

Every family, every situation, I could give you dozens of examples over the last year where, whether it’s a little child, a young man, different levels of disability, an elder. We have a situation where an entire extended family wanted to be able to go and visit their family in need. The demands are endless and we are talking about if we implement those, we’re talking about doubling or tripling the expenditure. If that’s what the Legislature wants to do and that’s how we want to spend our health budget, that is a decision for us to make, but I would suggest that it can’t be done as a case-by-case flexibility situation because it could not be administered.

I just want to let the Member know that the department is reviewing the Medical Travel Policy. We are reviewing the Escort Policy. I will come back to standing committee on what our options are, what may need to be changed, and what the cost implications are so we have a very clear picture about choices that we face.

I actually think that changing the policy would actually make us go too far over to that side, that I think putting some flexibility into the policy makes it easier to administer, actually, because of the case-by-case basis and the rough parameters of income and the nature of the issue. I think it’s something that can be developed. If we look at a policy change, it’s going to be something that’s going to take a long period of time to do, number one. Number two, it tends to put us in a box. That’s what most of the policies seem to do in the government. The government makes a policy and does not deviate from outside the policy no matter how reasonable and needy the situation is.

I think that just to again look at asking the Minister to look at some flexibility in the current policy and if that’s difficult to do, maybe to add some sort of parameters around the development -- I don’t even want to say development of a policy because I think

that means a lot of work by a lot of different people and a long period of time -- asking the Minister to develop some sort of parameters that would make the policy more flexible, more humane, actually, I guess. Because right now it’s not really that way.

We have elders that are sick here, where it was difficult for the family to provide them support. Especially family members that don’t have other family members living in the city of Yellowknife that have to come in and set up here in order to support the individual that’s sick. I don’t know the process or who the Minister could report this back to, but maybe just to the Priorities and Planning committee on looking at some flexibility in the policy.

Introducing an income threshold for determining eligibility about medical escort would be a policy change. If that’s what the Members would like to consider, that’s something that needs to be discussed and changed in the policy and we know how difficult it is to determine eligibility of house benefits by income. I personally believe we should help those who need the help the most, and often it’s those who are under low income.

Mr. Chairman, as I stated, we are reviewing the Medical Travel Policy and there will be some recommendations coming out of that. Under current policy there is room for flexibility where a case can be made that someone needs more than one escort medically, but it has to be medically evidenced.

My experience has been that most cases that come forward and ask to be looked at by giving more flexibility, we are talking about compassionate cases, and our policy does not allow compassionate medical travel because, as you can see, how do we determine that somebody who has a three-year-old child waiting for a heart transplant or a young man who is older than 18 but who needs his family but they’re not really a child? At what spectrum of medical condition do you determine that somebody needs a compassionate escort more than others? That is a real huge Pandora’s Box. For that reason, just for clarity and simplicity and ease of administration and for the people to know what they’re eligible for, that we need to have very, very clear guidelines and stick to them.

I’m not deflecting the Member’s question. This is a very, very complex area. If we’re going to change it, we need to change the policy. I am coming back to the Standing Committee on Social Programs with the results of our medical review and escorts will be a big part of that, so I look forward to having the discussion with the committee. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Lee. Mr. Beaulieu, your time is expired. I’ll go to the next person on my list. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I seek the committee’s indulgence to return to 8-21. I just

had a couple of questions I wanted to follow up on there. Thank you.

Is committee agreed that return to page 8-21?

Alright, committee, we’ll go back to page 8-21 and go to Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yesterday I was talking about some work that I think the department should be looking at in the area of the impending closure of the municipal airport in Edmonton. I listened to the Minister’s response yesterday and she said it could take up to three years. You might be right, Madam Minister, but it could happen sometime this year and I think we need to be heavily involved in the planning of that. We have to get a better understanding of what the impact is going to be on our budget going forward and I’d like to see that work begin in earnest.

The other issue that I wanted to bring up, and we talked a little bit about it yesterday, was the rapid repatriation protocol between our government and the Government of Alberta. Mr. Chairman, I guess I’m struggling to understand or figure out how we are planning for the more rapid repatriation of patients from Alberta hospitals back to the Northwest Territories and the corresponding cost associated with that happening. It runs the full gamut, everywhere from janitorial services to food services, the nursing component, other staff, doctors’ services. There’s going to be costs incurred across the board not only at Stanton but in Inuvik and Hay River and Fort Smith. What work are we doing upfront on this? I’d like to see it somewhere presented in the budget. The budgets don’t seem to be going up. Are we just going to be rolling with the punches as they come, Mr. Chairman?

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Minister Lee.

We are far from rolling with the punches. This is something that occupies us 24 hours a day. I’m going to get the deputy minister to give a full detail of the actions we are taking. Thank you.