My next question is: This is a particular issue that I’ve raised with previous deputy ministers of Health, and I understood it from a similar sort of positioning on-the-ground perspective that they too saw the benefit of requesting that formal flexibility through FMB.

Has anyone ever written FMB to request this type of policy ability, or flexibility I should call it? Rather than treating it as a one-time process, request the authority to use it as an ongoing flexible option.

I mean, the way I see it, and this example may not be perfect for the exact circumstances we’re under today, but, I mean, if you’re in the Fort Smith region, you have four doctors under your catalogue

of options, you’re only able to fill it with two. What is to stop the authority from saying, well, let’s use that doctor money? We can’t seem to hire two doctors so let’s use some flexibility and give the authority that type of flexibility to make choices on the ground. And who better knows their operating environment than the local authority for the local people?

That’s the type of question I’m really getting after, which is: Has the Department of Health ever requested a formal support or formal dispensation from FMB in order to do this formula as I’m talking about?