Lesa Semmler

Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned to the Member when they asked the question last week, there is no pot of money that I can create to make a policy tomorrow. If I was to do that, I would have to bring it through, you know, and I would have to reallocate funds within my budget that would be way more than the transfers that we have because the cost of doing these types of things is in the millions. When we look -- like I said, I tabled -- you know, it's been public, the medical travel costs for 2024-2025. Alone for escorts it was almost $8 million or more. And that's within just the scheduled...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So it is services that when -- physician services outside of the territory that can include when we do send people away, but it also includes anybody accessing services when they're not in the territory. So if you're travelling, like we have many teachers that leave the territory all summer and so they all travel to other parts of the country, we have many Northerners who leave the territory for parts of the summer and travel to other territories, when they're accessing services in other jurisdictions those are billed back to us, and then we allocate this pot of funding...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, when the patient needs access to healthcare, our system does get them to wherever the nearest service place is. It's when there's an exception process for an escort. That is usually the process that we use, and we have to use our policies as I mentioned. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, this budget here is just for operations of community health clinics and health centres. It doesn't include any capital or -- yeah, it doesn't include any capital. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Based on historics, that's the average that they use for medivacs and, you know, in a generation of the increases over the years. So because each air ambulance flight is a certain cost and so what they come -- how that's -- I believe it's budgeted is is that it's the average with inflation with the actual cost of doing business, and so that's what -- that's what it is. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I stated all last week to the Member, the NIHB policy -- you know, I can take this back and next time I meet with the Indigenous Services Canada Minister that if there's a way that they could provide a pot of money. But right now, GNWT is sitting in a deficit every year for medical travel. And so we already are providing a pot of money that's not being reimbursed when we approve exceptions and according to the processes that we use. Again, you know, we as a government are providing healthcare coverage to the patients when they need it when, you know -- and there are...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do believe that myself and my colleague, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, have been working together and trying to ensure that children in small communities -- you know, before we got into this government, there was decisions made, you know, to best support children in small communities. It really -- you know, I can't speak to it but we do know that it's been addressed, it's been highlighted as a concern, and so our -- both of our departments are working together to come back with the funding that we do have in our different areas to support children...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The diabetes program throughout the Northwest Territories I think has been -- like, as before, I remember working in Inuvik and we had a diabetes educator. Those were federally funded because that was the thing of the -- of that government that -- so that was time-limited funding and that. And then there's -- there's other -- like, there's the northern wellness agreements that we give to communities that can create -- what's the health priorities of their community, and then they can allocate those funds to running different types of programs. We also have CHRs that have...

Mr. Speaker, within my authority I have the ability to approve, but where I use the expertise of the medical advisor and the processes that we have to advise me on the recommendations, and then I make a decision based on that if it ever came to me. But, however, within this process, the majority of the exceptions that come to my office are not within the medical travel policy. They are usually when it comes to air ambulance. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you. No, that's the sobering centre staffing transferring to the housing. Thank you.