Mr. Chair, in the areas we see the asks here with respect to children in

southern placement and adults in southern placement, we have asked for money in the ‘14-15 budget which has been moved forward, added to the base so that we don’t have to come back for as large of supps in the future, but the Member does raise a good point. Having said that, the individuals that are in these southern placements are usually high needs individuals with a range of conditions. I have asked the department to do a file review of all the individuals, recognizing that many of them are very complex and we don’t have the capacity to support them, to see if there are any similar or like clients with the same type of needs. If there’s an opportunity for us to repatriate any of them through, as you said, maybe a facility, it might be cheaper to bring a group of people with similar needs back to the North and support them in the North closer to their homes. We are doing that review to see if there are any opportunities there. It’s going to take a while because each file is so different and so unique, but I will keep the committee posted as we move forward. If we do find an opportunity there to repatriate a block based on similar needs, we will certainly be coming to committee for some further discussion.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Mr. Nadli.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have no further questions.

Thank you. Committee, we are on page 7, Health and Social Services, operations expenditures, directorate, not previously authorized, $120,000.

Program delivery support, not previously authorized, $567,000.

Health services programs, not previously authorized, $12.568 million.

Supplementary health programs, not previously authorized, $2.521 million. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I see this is a request for Medical Travel Program costs. Again, I’m disappointed here. Basically we have poured in, in both during the 16th and 17th Assemblies, tens of

millions of dollars to increase the efficiency of our medical travel system. Specifically on electronic medical records, telehealth, call forward physician access, community pharmaceutical supplies, community electronic imaging capacity. I am just again wondering what’s happening here on the increasing costs that we’re seeing, or is it a budgeting issue? I understand that Stanton Territorial Hospital Authority is already in

substantial operating deficit and perhaps some of it is related to this, I don’t know. What are our substantial investments in the medical travel system getting us in terms of efficiencies? Why the ongoing unexpected, apparently, or unbudgeted costs here? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, I’d just note that we’ve done the calculations as we’re sitting here. The 2014 budget that we’ve just approved is a 9 percent increase, roughly, over last year. It’s the largest growth department, as it is just about every government of the land.

There have been some efficiencies with the changes we’ve made to personnel, how it’s managed, the navigator we put in place, the back office work were with various regions, but there are some significant cost-drivers here, the scheduled air travel, the tickets, ticket prices that have increased, reduced flight schedules. The Minister of Health indicated in the House yesterday or this week, just by not having any more flights in the mornings means you have to tack on an extra day on medical travel.

The medevac personnel contract has gone up considerably, four-hundred-and-some thousand dollars. The Edmonton city centre closure had a cost to us, and boarding home contracts, as well, have gone up. There has been a reduction in NIHB, what they pay, so that cost has been downloaded to us, unrecoverable costs, over $400,000.

So we have those pressures that drive up the cost. The other big issue is it’s demand driven, once again, the amount of travel required to move people around either in the North or from the North to the South. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Bromley.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Thanks to the Minister. I recognize that many of the costs he mentioned are indeed increasing. In terms of the increased travel, the intent of all our tens of millions of dollars of investments was to directly address that. I think studies have shown upwards of 50 percent of medical travel patients were out on the street an hour after they had their appointment and didn’t really need that travel. With what we’ve invested now in telehealth, electronic imaging, the direct access to physicians and so on, hopefully we’ll be saving quite a bit on that front. I’ll just leave that as a comment, but welcome any further response.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. We’ll leave that as a comment. Committee, page 7, Health and Social Services,

operations expenditures, directorate, not previously authorized, $120,000.

Program delivery support, not previously authorized, $567,000.

Health services programs, not previously authorized, $12.568 million.

Supplementary health programs, not previously authorized, $2.521 million.

Community wellness and social services, not previously authorized, $9.258 million.