Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is for the Minister of health.
The Premier made opening comments on this health today, and he talked about access, respect, and reliability. And in the 19th Assembly, we signed UNDRIP, so we talked about that a little bit as well. But, Mr. Speaker, part of the priority of this government, access to health care, is one of the three top priorities of this government -- or sorry, four top priorities of this government. And the letter from the Premier, June 12th, 2024, in that mandate letter from the Premier to the Minister of health, it talks about -- I'll just read the section here. It says that can the Minister start working with Indigenous governments to advance modernization of the GNWT medical travel policy.
Mr. Speaker, my question to the Minister: Can the Minister update the House on what advancements were made in the last 27 months to modernize the NWT medical travel policy? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there are many things that are ongoing right now, but one of the things that we had to do that was really priority was the medical response. So that's our air ambulance. We had to negotiate a new contract, which is only negotiated every ten years. This is to make sure that anybody who needs emergency air ambulance out of a small community into the capital or from a regional centre to the capital or to the south for whatever care that they need, that was a priority that was done. The other piece is that we are working on right now is we are working with NIHB. As the Member has stated in his Member's statement, the medical travel pieces are to surround the patient and getting them access to care; however, for First Nation and Inuit, we administer those on behalf of the rules that the federal government give us to do their program. They are the funder of the program, and if we do not administer their program under their rules then they do not give us the money to run the program. So one of the things that we have been doing is to -- working with our counterparts in Ottawa is to ensure that they understand the logistics of the North and our small communities and how our small communities and our seniors, our elders in our communities, don't comprehend a lot of English. And this is some of the work that we were able to take them with us on the Nahendeh tour, and they went into the small communities, heard from those communities. And so the work that we did through that, the work that we are doing on modernizing the medical travel that will also aid in some of the things that -- you know, I can't speak to the upcoming budget, but it's the work that we're doing that's going to help to make those changes. However, there is still many areas that we are working on and throughout the rest of the term of this government that hopefully that we'll be able to finalize that and implement those changes. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I talked about my constituents that have been medivaced here, a young mother was in an awkward position and leaving them more or less homeless because of the policies of government prohibited them getting help. We've been at this business since 1967, and I guess my question to the Minister is that is there a way that we could create a contingency account until proper due process is done in Ottawa to approve medical travel for patients here in the Northwest Territories? We should have an emergency fund. And we've been at it for 59 years, so is there something that we could do to help in that area? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the piece around air ambulance and medivacs is to get the patient to care. And sometimes, unfortunately, there is no -- patients can't take -- or the plane can't take other family members due to the amount of space and getting -- it's about getting the patient to the care that they need. What I would recommend is that anybody who -- you know, if their family members are leaving, it's reaching out to medical travel prior to, you know, jumping in your vehicle and driving because there are processes in place and sometimes, you know, it's unfortunate we're looking at the air ambulance because right now there isn't an exception or there isn't a policy around escorts when there's air ambulance. However, with NIHB -- which they will not delegate that to us -- they can, with the doctor and everybody can put in an exception request. With that exception request, sometimes there's an approval and sometimes there's not. But they don't delegate that to our administration. They hold that to them because that's up in their -- you know, for their decision-making. We are working with them right now to look at all of the things that they have approved to see if there's a way that they can delegate that to us, which we could do an approval a lot faster. And we're hoping within the next -- you know, within these next couple of months that we will have that work done. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Final supplementary. Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am a little concerned that our Treaties number 8 and 11, signed in 1900 and 2000 -- or sorry, 1921, and we have rights on health. And, Mr. Speaker, my concern is that the policy on government now is overriding our treaties. And so when they turn down help for our constituents, who are treaty members, and we deny them because we're hiding behind policies, in terms of moving forward in collaboration and implementation of UNDRIP, what can we do different now as we develop new policies to work with treaty communities and without impacting their treaty rights on health? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, with health care, access to health care, anything that's an insured service, any -- it doesn't matter whether you're treaty or not, you will have access to those services and we will get you to those appointments if you are the patient. Where it comes into always an issue is when the patient has the approval to travel but when there's no escort and the escort is denied. Those are the pieces that we're trying to work on. Because right now, you know, we have increased the amount of escorts over the past -- every two -- last two years, since I've been in here, the amount of escorts have increased. We are approving more escorts. We are streamlining the process a little bit better; those who need them. But there is still some work to do with NIHB on those circumstances related around air ambulances because there isn't, and that is not something that's delegated to us. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
