Thank you, Madam Chair. My colleagues have a lot of good comments here and I’d like to add a few general comments on the concept of our budget and this department. I guess it represents just about 25 percent of our budget. Another 4 percent increase this year. I understand the process of the fact that we want more money to go into health and I think the demands are always there. Being able to attend the Minister of Finance’s budget process and some of the general comments we got in Hay River were, do more with the same amount of money. They see a lot of wastage. I think that some of our colleagues have talked about some of the things that impact that.

Medical travel. Lots of travel. You’re made to attend a one-hour meeting. We have access in Hay River for telehealth but it doesn’t seem like the doctors or whoever is administrating it tends to want to use the telehealth system. I think that would save us quite a bit of money.

The medical records system, that’s great to hear the department’s in the process of completing that, because I know we’ve had issues in Hay River where people have to give blood a couple of times because they give blood in Hay River and then their medical records can’t be transferred over to the next hospital they transfer to. I’m hoping that will make it more efficient and hope to save the government some money in health care.

I support the new initiatives and I support increasing the budget, but we do have fiscal restraint. I look at the budgets and we look at between Education, Culture and Employment and Health we have just about 45 percent of the budget. It’s large numbers we’re talking about. I’m just wondering if it’s possible for us to do more with less. Or at least do more with the same amount we have right now.

I am definitely happy to see prevention and promotion in the budget being promoted. That’s a large area of concern in the Northwest Territories, especially to our government, not only in Health but in Justice. All our expenses lead back to some of that. I think you mentioned in meetings that if we could picture this territory without drug and alcohol problems, our budget would probably be half of what it is now. There would be people working who have capacity to work. There are people who are addicted to drugs and alcohol that don’t have the capacity to hold down a job or get more education. I think that’s definitely an area we have supported from this side of it. We have FAS issues, FASD issues, where those are high costs to our education system. A lot of them have to do with drug and alcohol issues. I think putting the dollars into that area is very vital.

Another item I’d like to talk about is the Midwifery Program. Obviously, I’ve sat in this House and promoted that as an issue that Hay River is very interested in. Right now we don’t have the ability to deliver babies in Hay River and we don’t see an immediate future of having a whole bunch of doctors and anesthesiologists and the skills to do traditional birthing, but midwifery is an area that we think is a potential, and it’s good to see it in the budget. I would like to see the department accelerate the implementation. Instead of rolling out the program in two or three years, I’d like to see them do it in one or two years. Instead of doing more planning or coordinating, put the jobs into the communities that have been identified by the department’s report and let the authorities operate and manage their midwifery programs.

Another area of concern I’ve brought up in the House is the area of flexibility. We obviously still continue to have issues with physicians in Hay River. We also have found some success with nurse practitioners and, right now, are only funded for a couple of nurse practitioners. We have a bunch of dollars that go into locum doctors where, if we had the flexibility to implement a third nurse practitioner, it would take care of a lot of the general concerns in the medical clinics. We’ve been able to, we’ve had a lot of success from the nurse practitioners. We’d like to have the flexibility to hire more in our physicians. I know the department’s working on that. I know the Minister has talked to FMBS to look at that and make that flexibility available.

That’s most of my concerns right now. Like I said, in the funding concept of it, it’s definitely good to see that the department’s adding funds in the areas that are needed, but I’d also stress that the department look at the way we’re doing things and if we can do more with the same amount of money. This number probably could double and we would probably still have people asking for additional things in our medical system. There’s a balance there between our wants and our needs and being more efficient with what we do.