Thank you, Madam Chair. The supplementary operations expenses, one of the things that I have is the amount of dollars that we are going to be approving for the Department of Health and Social Services, specifically the Beaufort-Delta and the Stanton Health Authority for the deficits these two hospitals are running.
Year after year we continue to bail out the authorities, and not in thousands of dollars but in the millions of dollars. I know that the department is working hard to address this issue and there have been many plans over the years on how they are going to work on some form of financial discipline to not have these deficits. It’s been almost a practice ever since I’ve been in the Legislative Assembly. Debt has continued to run high and it’s still running high. I’m not sure what causes these deficits to go so high. That hurts the small communities because we have money going into the Beaufort-Delta and Stanton to offset their deficits, so when we want to do some programs or services we are always told that there is no money. We continue to hear the same thing of no money for certain programs we want to see in our communities.
Case in point, we are seeing $3.3 million from this government going to staffing in the Beaufort, and we will continue to do that. Like I said before, the boards are working hard to address this issue and we keep throwing them lifelines to keep them afloat and not to go too badly into a deficit. There are probably some expenditures that are needed. I’m not too sure which ones.
It raises a concern for me, for the operation. Do we have it right with Stanton? Do we have it right with the Beaufort-Delta? Who’s managing their money? What things are we not picking up that they continue to go into deficit? Will we continue to bail them out year after year? The manager knows that they can count on the government to pass supplementaries to bail them out. Is that the message that we’re giving to these two health boards?
I understand other health boards are also in a deficit. Or is that the way we’re doing business in the Northwest Territories with health? With the costs, are we not under-budgeting? Something’s happening that we’re sending the message to these two boards. If this was a private business, they would be out of business. And we continue to bail them out year after year. This is not very healthy and probably our health care is not very healthy. I have a concern about that.
Madam Chair, we’re spending close to $3 million on blood services, blood products from the Canadian Blood Services. That’s a high cost also. Probably the people that we are spending this money on greatly need it. It’s probably saving lives right now, but it adds a huge cost to this government here. We’re spending over $2 million for children outside the Northwest Territories. I’m thinking that some of these services that the children are receiving outside the Territories we don’t have in the Northwest Territories, so we’ve got to spend it outside. Not to get into the details, but that’s a heck of a lot of money. I’m not too sure that there will be
a day when we can bring these children back to the North.
I wanted to ask about the income support assistance that we have. The department’s asking close to a million dollars for a shortfall. Where was the shortfall? Is that part of the government’s operations that we budget for unexpected shortfalls, forced growth, the number of clients that we’re receiving? Is that why some people in my region are being refused when family members are asking to support them? Those are the kinds of questions that I have.
To get back to the almost $3 million for the blood services for the people that we need in the North, can’t we look at other ways where we could possibly look at a process where we can donate blood for these people? At this cost, can we pay people to give blood in the North? That’s about all I have to say, Madam Chair, with the general comments to this supplementary budget.