Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, if I know of one policy that's been reviewed or could be referred to as an ongoing living document, it would be the medical travel modernization process. I can go back to memory of 2004 I was talking about it.
Mr. Speaker, my questions should -- if they're not aware yet who I am asking, I am asking the health Minister.
Mr. Speaker, my Member's statement today I talked about asking for an exit interview; in other words, people who go through the medical travel process, acknowledging formally right now most will probably not be a problem and they'll say it was great. That said, Mr. Speaker, people feel like they're being treated as bots. There's an insensitivity to the process. Would the Minister consider the option of making some after-process connections to find out how people's experience was through the medical travel experience. Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife Centre. Minister of Health and Social Services.
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 the department. We keep those requests. Every MLA concern brought forward to my office. We know what the issues are. It's the process that we have to get to through getting a policy written and then funding attached to it. That's where we're in this medical modernization. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the answer from the Minister. I mean, she says it's a very nice report. I guarantee you I bet it has a nice cover, etcetera. Mr. Speaker, the problem with this is the disconnect of the actual -- the report into action.
Mr. Speaker, is there a way to implement some of these results or recommendations earlier? Because if we all wait for medical travel to be repaired or fixed or modernized or whatever semantics we want to use, Mr. Speaker, the end of times are probably closer than this report being covered and then finally implemented. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, if this one file is the one that we've been most focused on, we've been moving it forward. You know, we have the patient journey, the Deh Cho patient journey mapping. We've got another medical travel piece going in to another couple more communities to be tracking to. Every community that travels is a little bit different, and so trying to come up with the process to one size fits all -- we just released the report on how much medical travel people are travelling, and it shows the costs of making sure that everybody -- and the amount of escorts that have happened and the cost of those escorts travelling, and so it's really important and it's been a direct -- like, on my office, on my staff, on the NTHSSA, right now we are -- you know, with this budget, we've got case managers in the budget as mentioned there to be -- you know, to help with that. So there's more pieces that are still continuing through the life of this government that are going to happen. However, it's going through -- got to go through the business plans to get the money to do it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My next question to the Minister of health is about a health envoy. Now, I am not sure we need a senior health envoy. I don't know if we can afford a senior health envoy. But, Mr. Speaker, many people will tell me that their service response or service standards aren't being met, which is they go out, there's disconnect on timing, people delayed getting back to them, whether it's phone calls or emails, and the fact is they feel stranded and alone and there is the panic and frustration and hence that's why we're talking about it today, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, in short, is the Minister able to create some type of navigator system specifically for medical travel while members are -- where our community, our people, our friends, our family, are out there getting services, because they do feel the disconnect. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Range Lake. Minister of Health and Social Services.
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Please.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as per the service standards, the most recent conversation that I've had with NTHSSA and the department, within the direction that I've given them, is to be able to come back with a timeline, I hope before March, as to implementing service standards so that we can brief committee so that we can, you know, go out to the public. Because I too have raised that issue. I have constituents that continue to receive medical travel the day before and so this is not -- and I've said it in this House that it's not acceptable. We can't expect our sick residents to be worrying about whether they have their travel. And so within this last month, you know, I've directed that I have this in place before the end of this year so that we can make sure that at least that area -- and people know when they're getting -- needing to travel, they're having their travel prior to a few days before, not the day of. So however with the -- I can take back as to how we can maybe do a -- you know, we know what the issues are. It's not that we don't know what the issues are. It's just the process of government through our business plans, and it's not always the fastest. So I will take that comment back to my department. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Colleagues, I need to remind you to slow down when we're speaking for our translators.
Oral questions. Member from Great Slave.
