Shauna Morgan

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do look forward to that bigger conversation. I think it's quite urgent. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. How many operational detox beds do we have -- well, how many detox beds do we have operational at the moment? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I do think the public administrator has his work cut out for him in terms of sorting through the budgets if there's a lot of -- I'm sure there's way more things in there but, you know, that have certainly been done but unfunded, and there's sort of money shifting around. Without even changing service levels or what we're doing, there's already lots of shifting around of numbers in these budgets.

Okay. The only other sort of main topic I wanted to ask about, in terms of community clinics and health centres, can the Minister tell us how many communities do we have in the...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to follow up on the question I was starting to ask about detox.

So can the Minister clarify whether the funding that we have for detox, is it all federally funded, or do we put some of our own money into detox services? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That is good news; it's good to hear. I think there is opportunity to save a lot of costs in that area by allowing more flexibility and allowing people to just sort of do it themselves, not just the cost of flight which might -- people might be able to find a better deal but, you know, when the system is so bogged down and people find out, like, less than 24 hours ahead of time that they're going to travel, and you inevitably end up having people miss flights and miss appointments, and then there's even more costs piled on top of -- for having to rebook. And so, I mean, I...

Yeah, thanks for that. I mean, I guess what I was getting at was are we expecting to save money at the end of the day by sorting out some of the roles and responsibilities? Are we expecting to have more effective responses, for example, to outbreaks of certain contagious infections or diseases and can we set some indicators that can show that we will have improvements in, like, how quickly we can contain, you know, contagious outbreaks of something or other, or get test kits to communities, or are we going to be saving money? Are any of those things included in the indicators of monitoring...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thanks to the Minister for that. That is great to hear that we are better supporting facilities or on-the-land programs closer to home that we can offer to people instead of having to go away for facility-based addictions treatment. I know for some people that might be the best thing, but for others it might not be.

I would love if we could sort of monitor this over time given that one of the priorities of the Assembly is addressing the effects of trauma and addressing addictions in better ways. So I know that it's -- a lot of these programs are offered by partners...

Okay, And just to clarify, the idea is that population and public health will continue to straddle HSS and the health authorities or that it will be transferred entirely to the health authority? I understand that roles and responsibilities need to get sorted out, but is the intention that those roles and responsibilities will continue to straddle the two? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. That is good to hear. It's good to confirm.

We've heard that part of the business plans and priorities in this area is reviewing medical travel. First, is that part of the work under this area, administrative and support services, or should I leave questions about the medical travel review until we're actually looking at line items, say, within the health authority around medical travel? Can I just confirm that I can ask questions about the review process with this page that we're reviewing now?

Okay, thank you for that clarification. My next question is a bit broad. But I'm wondering if the work of the public administrator to review, you know, health care, you know, funding, and to try to figure out how we can right fund the health system, does that include examination of HSS work? I know that the public administrator has a mandate to oversee the health authority, the NTHSSA, but can they also look at -- obviously the health authority interacts with the department. And is there any authority there to make recommendations to the department on what could be done differently or more...