Robert Bouchard

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Asset management, not previously authorized, negative $546,000.

Bill as a whole.

Question has been called.

---Carried

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Minister’s answer there and I appreciate the concept, but how much of a priority is it to assist the authority in promotion of the community itself and to get a doctor in place? I understand the concept of a central unit, but obviously in this House we have concerns about decentralization and we want to see that in the communities.

How much is the department pushing the recruitment of doctors in the communities versus a centralized doctor pool?

Mr. Bromley.

Page 8, Environment and Natural Resources, operations expenditures, forest management, special warrants, $13.894 million. Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, committee. I’ll ask the Sergeant-at-Arms to escort the witnesses into the Chamber.

Could the Minister please introduce the witnesses?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Minister indicated, a person could come off those medications really quickly and the money could be obtained quickly.

Can I get commitment from the Minister that his department will look into doing bariatric surgery sooner than later and helping these people in the North that are heavy, heavy people that are way overweight? I’m not talking about somebody that’s 20 or 30 pounds, I’m talking about somebody that’s 100, 150, 200 pounds, like I was.

Along those lines, the department has indicated to me that it is insurable if it’s medically necessary. Can the Minister explain to me what is medical necessity? Does it matter if you’re 50 pounds overweight, 100 pounds overweight, 200 pounds overweight? When does it become a medical necessity to lose this weight?

At that cost of $800 to $1,000 a month, which I was costing the GNWT every month, I have since then been able to get off of insulin, I haven’t eliminated Metformin yet, I have gotten rid of water pills, and because I am on Metformin still, I need a blood pressure pill. Most of those costs are gone, Mr. Speaker. So the costs associated that are saved could be put towards bariatric surgery. That would be repaid within a year to two years, depending on the types of medications an individual is on.

I will have questions for the Minister of Health today to convince him and the department that this...