Glen Abernethy

The resident who happens to be utilizing the services would have to work with the practitioner and then we would follow the normal medical travel process with respect to the exception request.

If a resident comes to Yellowknife, happens to get sick and is admitted to the hospital and then has to be transferred to another hospital in their home community, they would actually be covered. It’s when the individual is discharged or free to go where this is a situation. The resident would have to work through their practitioner and follow the normal medical travel process. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Medical Travel Policy is for patients who require medical travel to the nearest location where necessary and appropriate insured services are available, so if a resident were to travel to Yellowknife from a community or from outside of Yellowknife and they happened to get sick while they’re in Yellowknife, there is no transportation required to bring them to the closest location where the insured services can be provided because they already happen to be in Yellowknife. If the patient is then discharged and is able to travel on a commercial flight, there is no...

Exception requests are done on a case-by-case basis, recognizing the challenges that the patient and the practitioners provide. I can’t say it would be one day, I can’t say it would be three days. It all depends on the situation, but they would move as quickly as they can to accommodate the needs of the residents and the practitioners to make sure they get the support they need. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As I’ve previously committed in the House, we are doing a comprehensive review and modifications to the Medical Travel Policy, and these are the types of discussions we’re having and we’ll certainly continue to have them with the Member and his committee.

The exception requests are done on a case-by-case basis. They have to come from a practitioner, but in situations like this, if the Member identifies to the practitioner or the resident identifies to the practitioner the need and the situation behind, they can absolutely make an exception request and it will be considered seriously. Thank you...

I am aware of a situation that has come up recently very similar to the one the Member is describing and it was referenced in that discussion that there used to be a fund that provided supports very similar to the type that the Member is talking about. That fund no longer exists. But it is one of the items that I’ve put on the agenda for the Ministers’ Social Envelope Committee and we will be having further discussions, and I look forward from committee as we move forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you. It would be very difficult to give an exact dollar figure for that because the reason an individual might not attend an appointment or, rather, the appointment the individual misses may have a significantly different cost than an appointment that another individual misses. So, just having a number of missed appointments doesn’t really help us quantify it. We would have to dig in for each appointment, figure out what the procedures that were supposed to be done would have been and work from there. This would take a significant amount of work. We do believe it’s significant.

I do agree...

Thank you. I don’t have any of those statistics in front of me today, but I’ll certainly get that information from the department and share with the Member.

As far as the travel clinics and whatnot, we have the same problem that we do here in Yellowknife. This is a big issue for us. We know there are significant costs on the system. I do know that the Member had a life previous to government where he was in health care outside of the public service, so I’d really be interested in his ideas and concepts for helping us improve the no-show rates. A number of things need to happen, we get that, and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize a few people, as well, and I’d like to start by recognizing a couple of the Pages here from the Great Slave riding: Isabel Wilson and Joseph Cameron. I’d like to thank you both for everything that you’ve done for us over the last couple of weeks. We truly appreciate what all the Pages do for us. I’d also like to recognize a constituent, Mark Salvor. Nice to see you in the gallery.

Yesterday I made a statement in the House about a cancer video that will be premiered in the Great Hall later today and I’d like to recognize Charlie Furlong, who is in...

Mr. Speaker, I like working with committee, I am committed to working with committee, and I will work with committee. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We don’t currently have a fund that I think exactly matches the type of situation that the Member is talking about, but I think that goes a lot to the types of questions that Mr. Bromley was asking yesterday about the poverty trap and trying to find ways to support families so we don’t drive them into that area.

I have committed to working with the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment and the other social envelope members to start working to see if we could find some ways to address this to make sure this type of thing doesn’t happen and we could provide...