Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So a few days ago, the health Minister gave an update in her statement in the House on the progress made on the public administrator's work plan, and it was mentioned in that statement that progress has, in fact, been made on financial sustainability in particular, and so I wanted to ask for more details on some of the statements made at that time. So with regard to progress made on deficits, can the Minister tell us -- and this is the Minister of Health and Social Services in case it was not clear. Can the Minister tell us in which areas of health authority spending savings were found in order to reduce the operations-related deficit by $8 million between 2025-2026 and 2026-2027? So that was mentioned in the statement. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So within the 2025-2026, 2026-2027, so the reductions include voluntary holding non-essential positions vacant, reductions in non-clinical travel, and non-clinical training, and other O&M expenses, reduction of non-essential overtime, any standby and callback for non-essential, and redirecting any unused funding to other priorities within NTHSSA. Within 2025-2026, NTHSSA worked closely with the Department of Health and Social Services to ensure one-time funding received for chronically underfunded programs, which included underfunding costs related to laboratory and diagnostic imaging, underfunding costs to medical travel program, underfunding costs to COVID-19 vaccine and chemotherapy drugs, underfunding costs for foster care. And the NTHSSA continues to look at the financial sustainability of medical travel and adult out of territory services as well as other programs. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There was also a statement made that previous to that -- can the Minister tell us what areas of health authority spending were cut, or where were the savings found to reduce the operations-related deficit by even more, by $34 million in 2024-2025 compared to what had been budgeted? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, within 2024-2025, one of the biggest pieces was that we were able to -- we were able to secure additional federal funding. I think that was the first year that we got the two-year special allotment ever in the Northwest Territories for the medical travel piece to offset our costs. So that helped. Additional one-time GNWT funding, lower than budgeted costs across the NTHSSA programs, and some fiscal restraint measures implemented in our fourth quarter also contribute to that decreased deficit. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So, finally, can the Minister help explain to us any specific actions that the public administrator is in charge of that will lead to further savings and deficit reductions in the year to come? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, thank you. So the continuation of the fiscal -- I think the piece with the PA, he's been working closely at making sure that organizationally -- and just most recently the conversations that we've been having is looking at operationally within each area, within each region, you know, working with staff to kind of say what -- you know, with COOs and their budgets, if they know that there's areas where, you know, there's changes that need to happen. So we're actually -- that's one of the pieces that he's leading.
The other piece is the continuation of working with the department and with the deputy minister of the Department of Health and Social Services. Where they're looking at right now is that overlap where the executive of the NTHSSA and the department they're finding that -- well, it's not a secret. We've all said that there's some overlap there. So we're trying to ensure that with them two working together, with the ADMs and, you know, with their territorial managers, like, where does the department end in policy and -- you know, then where does operation start? If there's duplications, then that's the work that they're currently doing right now. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
