I’ll try to remember when we get there what section that was. Mr. Dolynny talked a bit about the governance and I had the same question why there doesn’t seem to be any indication in the budget that we’re going to be saving some money in terms of the amalgamation of health authorities into one. I would have thought there would have been some efficiencies and some savings due to economies of scale. I can appreciate the Minister’s remark that health costs keep going up. Absolutely they do. But, I guess, can we anticipate, then, that once this amalgamated system is in place, and I would think that it’s going to take probably a year for that to happen, so I’m looking forward to the budget for ’16-17. Can we anticipate that there wouldn’t be an increase in the overall budget because of the amalgamation of the health boards?

Just to be clear, we are talking about the ’15-16 budget, as the Member indicated, and the health transformation will not occur during this fiscal year. Much of the work is going to be done. The actual rollout of the transformed health system will begin April 1, 2016, and it may take a bit of time to realize some of the savings in some of the specific areas where those savings might occur. It would probably be a little premature to say whether or not we will see an increase in the budget in ’16 and ’17 or whether we’d see a decrease in the budget in ’16 and ’17. We are doing the work now that’s going to help articulate where we can get some of these program area savings and we will certainly be sharing that information with Members as that work is concluded.

Thanks to the Minister. That’s what I was trying to get at. I mean, a budget is an estimate document, and I was hoping that the Minister could give me an idea whether in ’16-17 the department is anticipating any savings.

There are two acts which will be coming into force in the next little while, certainly within this next budget year. Maybe I should ask the question first. Should I be asking about costs associated with

legislation that’s going to be implemented here, or does it come elsewhere?

It could be here. A lot of those costs will be in the directorate.

I figured it depended on the act. Probably the one that’s going to be the most expensive is the Health Information Act. I would like to know where that’s reflected in this budget. Thank you.

The increased cost as a result of the Health Information Act is in this budget, the 2014-2015 budget, which means it’s also in the 2015-16 budget. For the detail, Ms. DeLancey.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Ms. DeLancey.

Thank you, Ms. DeLancey. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The other piece of legislation is the Health and Social Services Professions Act. It’s anticipated to be in place during this budget year, so there’s also anticipated to be some costs around that. So where is that reflected? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We don’t see a significant increase in any cost. Most of the work is going to be done by staff who are employed by the department. There might be some slight increase in some contracts, lawyer time, which we work with the Department of Justice on so there shouldn’t be significant need for additional money to conclude or do that ongoing work. We have the staff already.

Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Administrative and support services, operations expenditure summary, $82.464 million. Ms. Bisaro.

Thanks, Madam Chair. I have one more question here and it has to do with the Medical Travel Policy. It seems we have been amending this policy for quite some time. I know the department has been working very hard on it and has been doing a lot of consultation and investigation and so on. I would like an update on where that’s at. The other half of this question is once we do put a new policy into place, is it going

to create some efficiencies and save us some money or, because it’s a new policy, is it going to expand our costs and are we expecting an increase in medical travel due to the policy? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Could I direct you to page 215 of the budget for Health? If you think it fits better under policy, then it does, but I just wanted to mention that on 215 under supplementary health programs, medical travel is listed there. But if it’s on policy I will refer the question to the Minister. Minister Abernethy.

Thanks, Madam Chair. I am happy to answer the question now. We did send the draft Medical Travel Policy to the Standing Committee on Social Programs to provide us with input. We are just tweaking it right now at which point we’ll be sending it to the executive for final consideration. At the same time, we are also working on the individual pillars that fall under the Medical Travel Policy and right now we’re actually doing the work on patients, supports and escorts that began in 2014, December. Our consultants have travelled to communities like Hay River, Inuvik, Tuk and Behchoko. They’ve gone to the Larga House. There have also been a number of stakeholder engagement meetings on the patients, supports and escorts. It’s on track to be completed in April 2015. As of the middle of January, we had over 123 people who have engaged in one-on-one interviews and focus groups. Yellowknife, Fort Good Hope and Trout Lake are still on a plan to be engaged before the current engagement process is over.

As we’ve said all along, once the Medical Travel Policy is done we are going to start working on these pillars. So patient supports is the first one we’re working on and in July 2015 we are planning to begin the work on benefits and eligibility and start the engagement around that and in 2015-16 we also want to get to the new medical travel appeal process so we can have all those new policies done.

I don’t believe that it’s going to save money. I believe its cost neutral but it’s about getting the best results for the patients and making sure they have the supports they need when they are travelling. We don’t anticipate an increase. We believe we can do better with the dollars we have by having appropriate programs in place.

Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Administrative and support services, operations expenditure summary, $82.464 million.

Agreed. Thank you. Page 190, administrative and support

services, grants, contributions and transfers, total contributions, $43.887 million. Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m pleased to see that the French language services. We finally have allocations in many of our departments. It’s good to see that we’re living up to our legal obligation in Canada. That said, I know through a lot of reporting and a lot of feedback we’ve received over the years where we talk about where our policies fail, where our processes don’t meet the expectations of our clients, barriers to patients, especially accessing services quickly and efficiently and people who fall through the cracks. These were terminologies that were very widespread in a lot of system reviews we had in the Department of Health. The one thing that I feel we may have not covered in trying to mitigate these cracks in our process is the issue of having proper first-language services throughout all our communities. This has been brought up by many Members, having proper translation in all our official languages where clients come into our facilities who need that extra help to understand what their ailments are and get that proper communication. We know there are barriers. That is undisputable. The question is: What is this department planning to do this year to help move that file forward? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The Department of Health and Social Services does recognize the importance of language and culture in all aspects of daily lives throughout the Northwest Territories. In many of the small communities, it is indeed a struggle to recruit and retain health care providers in any language. We do strive to offer services in all official languages here in the Northwest Territories.

However, because of capacity issues, this is obviously sometimes quite difficult. We have a multi-lingual website which offers a range of information in all official languages here in the Northwest Territories. We continue to post more information to this website in the Aboriginal languages all the time and we will continue to do so.

The department is also working with the departments of Education, Culture and Employment and Human Resources to implement the strategic plan on French language services and communications, which is one of the reasons you see some of the increases in front of you today.

By way of example, the Stanton Territorial Health Authority has an Aboriginal languages division that coordinates some language services within the facility here in Yellowknife. The regional health and social services authorities do have limited numbers of bilingual employees within their facilities, within

their communities; however, they also have a list of interpreters and translators that they have under contract and who can provide services when required.

We also have a toll-free Helpline which offers services in other languages through an interpretation service. I believe it’s called CanTalk. However, they do have some limited ability to facilitate services in some of the Aboriginal languages. So there are a number of things we are trying to do to ensure our residents are receiving the services they need and that language services are available. In our health centres when we have individuals who do speak the language, we do provide them with bilingual bonuses so they can help us in communicating with people who are maybe unilingual as well.

So there are a number of things going on. Thank you, Madam Chair.

I will try not to sound blunt here. I’ve heard this song and dance before and so have many Members of the House. It’s not as if I am displeased, knowing we are striving and dealing with capacity issues and trying to find individuals and work on cross-departmental solutions. The fact remains is we’re still not able to provide that level of primary first-language service in a lot of our communities.

What I haven’t heard the Minister indicate is we are using technology. By technology, I mean just the simple fact of having an app with easy pictures, body parts where the pain is in conjunction with the people who may speak the language, simple tools and mechanics could be used to help diagnose and explain what the health system can do for that patient rather than nothing. I can’t expect a patient who doesn’t understand English coming into a scenario where at least we have some tools at the health centre, other than pointing them to a website. Is the department working on using technology? I’m not just talking in the bigger forum in terms of medical records and telehealth – I mean, those are big processes – but I’m talking about in the hands of the people who could be user-friendly, live in a world of app-friendly technology, and I know there have been language apps that have been designed. Have there been language apps designed for mental and health related issues? That can act as a segue between what the patient needs and what we can deliver at a health care level.

So again, the question is technology, are we there? Thank you.

I’ll just re-state again we are using CanTalk, which is technology. But I agree with what the Member is saying completely and Education, Culture and Employment is working with a number of the Aboriginal governments to create actual apps for things that can be used on

iPhones and iPads around languages and to help people do exactly what the Member is talking about.

We’re currently working with a number of the different Aboriginal organizations and language groups in the Northwest Territories to help provide translation around medical terminology. When that’s done it would be a great opportunity to work with Education, Culture and Employment and the different language groups to get that information included within their language apps. We will certainly pursue that. That is a fantastic idea and I do thank the Member.