Sandy Lee

We are far from rolling with the punches. This is something that occupies us 24 hours a day. I’m going to get the deputy minister to give a full detail of the actions we are taking. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the Member’s comment. I don’t think anything he says precludes the debate that I said that was required.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think I’m going to have to do a better breakdown and get back to you, but the hospital block funding includes doctors working in those health centres and other services we provide. I’m going to get Mr. Elkin to explain.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The flexibility that the Member is suggesting would be a policy change and I think what we need is we want to be clear about our policies. If we want to change the policy, we should change them. Adding a flexibility makes it too difficult for staff in the system to administer.

What the Member is speaking to is a compassionate medical escort and a compassionate escort is not provided for under our policy. We are reviewing our Medical Travel Policy right now including an escort issue, because we are inundated every day with families who would like us to assist more. We as...

Wow. Let me just be brief. I guess just one reason, as I stated earlier, is that given the discussions we’ve had over the last two or three years, we were told clearly that the Supplementary Health Benefits Policy that was approved, but not in effect yet, should be rescinded. We did that. A core part of that policy was an income threshold which, in turn, determined a group of people that we considered to be working poor. We were told, in no uncertain terms, that our public does not want us to determine health benefits by income. So that’s where we are.

As I stated earlier, we are following and...

We are working toward right sizing the budget for the eight authorities and we will be making recommendations on how we do that going forward. I do take the Member’s point and appreciate it. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, we approve the budget a year at a time. We are considering the budget for 2011-12. The next year’s consideration will go through the regular business plan process this May through September, I would think. Mr. Speaker, by then I am sure that we would have the information.

We need to look at the needs for nurse practitioners and all the other HR issues that the Department of Health and Social Services consider. As I committed already, my officials and the Department of ECE are going to continue to work on this issue, as they came to our attention in the last couple of weeks. Let me...

Mr. Chairman, I will see if that is available and whether or not it can be made available. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are a lot of programs and funding that the department provides to communities, whether it be through authorities, NGOs, Aboriginal governments. Sometimes we get funding from the federal government. Some programs involve just working with the youth on suicide prevention. We do have programs that work with elders and youth. I would be happy to present the Member with all of the details that he requires. I don’t have it right in front of me. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, that is the section where through this program we block fund the authorities and the Member asked what we were doing to improve the administration. I, as a Minister, work through Joint Leadership Council. We have regular meetings, we talk about all manner of things right from the budgetary issues, policy issues, working as a system, Foundation for Change action plan or whatever else is on the go. We seek advice from each other. So that’s how we work together at my level. The deputy minister is in constant touch every day with the administration, on delivery of services and so are the...