Lesa Semmler

Thank you. I am going to turn it over to the ADM.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have brought this back to NTHSSA and they have not brought back the -- a timeline but however we have had many conversations on what -- versus buying a program that's going to need to meet our OCIO standards for health information versus -- and that's not going to connect into our booking -- our EMR -- or EHR right now. So I will follow up with where we're at and if there is further discussions or options on that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is the conversation that all health Ministers across Canada are having right now and, you know, there's -- in every jurisdiction, there's a little bit different going on everywhere. And one of the issues -- and I don't want to take up the whole time to -- so I am going to be very -- when we have a -- we have a public healthcare system in Canada. That's the free system that's insured services. We're already constrained by the amount of, you know, healthcare staff that are provided. Private clinics are usually -- they can charge more, they can pay their staff more...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, those processes are already in place, and I -- you know, I am not sitting here saying that there's no problems within the system. There is, and I've acknowledged it, and we are going through the process to look at escorts for air ambulance. We are gathering the data. You know, those processes then go through our business plan process. So within the Office of Client Experience, they have a very nice report that they have, you know, taken a lot of the data and the complaints and, well, my office has documented any exception requests that have gotten through...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we currently have four Indigenous patient advocates: one in Yellowknife, one in had Fort Smith, one in Inuvik, one in Hay River. And those are all -- they were put into those places specifically because that's usually where, like there's -- the hospitals and the larger health centres are in those communities so that when people are travelling in from small communities, you know, they're there to be able to help them navigate within that facility or to hear their concerns. However, although those are only in those communities, they can reach -- any resident can...

I will try and be more clear. We have negotiated fixed costs however it's fixed costs per flight. So if there's more air ambulance traffic, then it's going to be more. So at the end of the year, we average what -- you know, the historical information is on medivacs, the amount of medivacs, and then we budget it accordingly to that. So, yes, the contract is fixed but it's the amount of -- like, so if there's -- say, there's a hundred more medivacs next year than what we budgeted for the average, if it's a hundred more than what was the average, then it will be a little bit more and we'd have to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I honour the treaties. And as an Indigenous health Minister, I am working extremely hard to fix this policy as it's different in every community. I went to this MLA's communities and spoke with them. You know, I asked them to address things that, you know, that they feel that -- however, when it comes to -- you know, when people are leaving the territory on their own, if this government has to pay for every single time somebody left this territory and had a medical emergency for their families to travel and stay with them, my whole budget would be based on...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I am going to just say that myself and the Minister -- I won't speak for her, but we are both very live to this Jordan's Principle issue and how the impact of it is in our territory. We are continuing to work with our Indigenous partners and advocating the federal government to make sure that they recognize the Northwest Territories' issues separately than just an on-reserve/off-reserve situation like they previously did. And so, you know, we are continuing to work together and just so you know, I think our whole Cabinet, and I think everyone in this House will...

Yes, that was a one-time initiative funding, and it was sunset.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as the Minister, you know, my role is to ensure that when these concerns are coming up that I am able to bring forward, through our processes, through our business planning process, the evidence and the data when spending and when asking this House to spend public dollars and that is the process that I have to go through. When it comes to exceptions, right now the policy we have is for medical travel for scheduled appointments. There is no escort policy for medivacs or ground ambulance or air ambulance, and that is why within the medical travel...