Tom Beaulieu

That committee will be looking at bariatric surgery. Why currently the physicians are refusing to assist individuals that have bariatric surgery, I don’t know, but it’s on the agenda for that committee to look at, at specifically the whole area of bariatric surgery, the whole area of obesity and how it impacts and how it has a direct correlation on chronic disease such as diabetes. Thank you.

Yes, that is correct.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The breakdown is NWT Midwives Association, $8,000; NWT Seniors’ Society, $188,000; Canadian Institute for the Blind, $100,000; NWT Council for the Disabled, $183,000; Hay River Committee of Persons with Disabilities, $35,000; in-house respite contributions, $225,000.

We are underfunded for the medical travel of about $5 million.

Hopefully, by the time we look at the cost of trying to get a residence in Hay River we would have the new health centre functioning with doctors and midwives, hopefully. But I have no issue with looking at the possibility and examining what the costs of Vital Abel are and what it would cost to provide that service for Hay River.

We don’t, beyond what is indicated in our business plan now, have in our mains more money targeted in here. However, we are working with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment in the early childhood development. Some of that money could be used to expand Healthy Families beyond what we have laid out, which would, I think, include most communities where there are a number of births.

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. Speaker. The Department of Health and Social Services recognizes, and also in discussion with many people recognize that bariatric surgery and other issues or other medical services that could address obesity are something that we are looking at adding to our insured services. Thank you.

We do get monthly reports from the current provider. There is a requirement within the current contract for that information to be gathered by the contractor and provided to our department.

It is not in this year’s budget, this year’s mains. We had not anticipated putting it into the 2014-2015 mains at this time. We don’t know what the cost of that would be at this time.