Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ve often raised the issue of Stanton Territorial Hospital’s deficit, and over the years I’ve often said that it’s my belief that it’s underfunded and it needs a true and serious detailed funding assessment. Recently, I went to the public administrator’s open house to talk about this particular issue about how

the hospital is running, and of course, I was very impressed with the work that they’re doing there. What stood out clearly are two particular issues. The first one is the physician costs and medical travel costs are put down on the Stanton Territorial Hospital. Certainly, the second issue out of it is it’s completely out of their control.

The point I’m getting to is that’s what’s causing the deficit at Stanton Territorial Hospital, things they have to manage and control but are out of their responsibility.

My question to the Minister of Health and Social Services simply is: Is his department doing an assessment and consideration about moving those particular costs outside of the Stanton Territorial Hospital and making them a departmental cost, which will allow the hospital to operate financially sound?