Under medical equipment under $50,000, the funding for the minor medical equipment purchases, I wanted to thank the Minister of Health. One time when he went to Colville Lake, that certainly helped us with a dental chair. I believe it was Mr. Miltenberger who was the Minister of Health at that time. These simple things in our health centres that we have medical equipment that sometimes gets overlooked. Certainly, now the people in Colville Lake talk about that incident where the Minister had to come to the health centre to look at some of the equipment that we have there. They were second hand or hand-me-downs from other larger centres. The health equipment in our smaller communities certainly goes a long way towards medical care in some of the centres that we have. I look forward, again, to the Minister making some improvements in some of the smaller communities where even a kit for testing diabetes in health centres are some of the places that are certainly lacking in some of these basic medical equipment. I just want to again let the Minister know that whatever can help us in our small communities, we appreciate it. More of a comment.

We have allocated $13,000 to the Sahtu Health and Social Services for equipment under $50,000. In addition to that, the department has $3.1 million in the capital budget for minor medical equipment.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Page 8-24, Health and Social Services, activity summary, health services programs, grants and contributions, grants, $40,000, contributions, $152.528 million, total grants and contributions, $152.568 million. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just on hospital services, it seems like we’re really

towing the line, and maybe even decreasing the budgets over time, for hospital services. Obviously, I think we are providing more services, the more medical procedures and so on.

I’m particularly concerned at Stanton where, as the years go by, we realize how poorly designed the hospital is for modern health care delivery in a hospital situation, how bad that is. So I can’t believe that we’re really delivering better care with this stagnant or declining budget. I’m sure we are gaining some efficiencies. Can I have the Minister just comment on this situation? Are our hospitals really getting by on less and providing the same services or are we giving up more services or some services despite covering a broader diversity of services?

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The way the budget is laid out, if you’re comparing with the actuals, it looks like the budget has decreased, but if you compare with the mains, then you can see that there is a gradual increase. The reason the actuals are high is we have bumped up their budget on the redistribution of funding between all of the health and social services authorities, including Stanton. Some of the authorities that had deficits, we had moved money. We had an agreement with all of the authorities that we would move money around. This was the reason it shows as a bit of a bump up to $87 million in actuals for 2011-2012. If you come back to the mains or even the revised mains for 2012-2013 compared to 2013-2014 there is a slight increase.

Thanks to the Minister for those comments. I take his point there. My concern remains for Stanton. As the Minister knows, we had a tour of Stanton not so long ago, a matter of days or a couple weeks. I think there are some real obvious difficulties there. I guess I’m asking, how are we handling that situation and how is it not reflected in this when it’s clear that there’s a very inefficient delivery of health services at Stanton. Our needs are increasing. I think it was something like 20,000 when it was designed for 10,000 visits and it’s actually handling 20,000 visits now. If I could get some comments from the Minister on how we’re dealing with that situation. Thank you.

Thank you. We recognize that Stanton was not designed to handle the volume of visits, the volume of patients that they currently face. That is why we’re going through the planning and going through the capital budget to come back to the House to make some renovations, possible additions and reallocations of space in Stanton.

As far as this budget goes and the $84 million, the budget moving from the revised mains to what we have here as the mains, there’s a difference of

$3.36 million and I would say that a large portion of that has been allocated to Stanton. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. On page 8-24 then, health services programs, grants and contributions, grants, $40,000, contributions, total contributions, $152.528 million.

Sorry; I didn’t read that line. Total grants and contributions, $152.568 million.

Thank you. Moving on to page 8-27, supplementary health programs, operations expenditure summary, $26.730 million. Ms. Bisaro.

Thanks, Madam Chair. I just have one question here with regard to the cost to us as a government for… We have many of our residents who are covered under the federal Supplementary Health Benefits Program, the NIHB program, and it’s always a mystery to me whether or not we top up the NIHB payments to us, whether we provide a service which costs us more than what we get back from the federal government and I’m thinking particularly of travel costs. So I’d like to know from the Minister whether or not this budget includes any funding, any expenses, which are an expense to this government to top up the NIHB coverage from the federal government. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Beaulieu.

Thank you, Madam Chair. No, we don’t pay anything over and above what services are provided by them, the money that’s provided by them to cover medical costs. They pay us in addition to that an administrative fee to administer that NIHB.

Thanks to the Minister. I don’t know if this is a valid example or not, but I did hear somewhere that if NIHB only covers road travel from Yellowknife to Edmonton for a particular procedure, I would presume that we would not send the patient by road, we would send the patient on an airplane and are we then losing or gaining money with the cost from the feds based on road. Thank you.

Thank you. We are not familiar with any type of difference in what they would cover for travel and what we bill back. So when we bill back, when we have an NIHB client that travels, we bill back the actual to NIHB.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Next I have Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The question I have for the Minister or deputy minister

is: When was the last time that the department has done a full review of the Supplementary Health Care Program in terms of criteria and eligibility for payment for whether it’s appliances, prosthetics, drugs, medical expenses? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister Beaulieu.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I don’t have that information on the date, but we think that review had occurred in 2007, but we can check to confirm that.

Thank you. Can the department indicate whether or not we’ve got systems in place to have formal reviews done in supplementary health programs on a frequent basis or is this basically an on-demand request from the department when need be? Thank you.

Thank you. The department does not have a regular cycle for reviewing supplementary health benefits.