Sandy Lee

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just for the benefit of the public out there, I think it’s important to know we have a very unique system of government. It’s a system where everybody in the House has access to information in a way that’s unthinkable in other southern parliamentary jurisdictions. This is a Legislature where all the Members have a preview of the entire budget, the entire capital project budgets, confidential briefings on negotiations and everything. I think that’s a good thing. I think that’s what we want to keep. But in order for that to work we have to follow some rules. The rules are...

The Member knows that a lot of situations and files come to my desk. We review them to make sure the policy is applied. If the physicians order procedures that are not eligible for coverage under our program, they would be advised, which is the situation that happened with the weight loss reduction procedures. All the doctors have been given clinical guidelines to make sure that they understand this. We have lots of doctors coming and going in the Territories and they need to always be getting these messages. So I’ll be happy to look at any file that the Member is asking, but we would always...

As I’ve already indicated, we have very good medical and health care coverage. The weight loss reduction procedure is not a health care program that’s covered anywhere. We have discovered that some of them were approved by mistake and we are not going to approve that. We are working on developing a program that can help these clients in the North, because we have in fact discovered that some of the programs they were getting down south were in private clinics and something that we could look into doing here. We do need to do more here.

With respect to paying clinic files, those are private...

The communication is to the front-line staff and the regional health authorities. They will be going out to the communities to do a publicity campaign. I will make sure that they make contact with leadership to ask for their assistance, very much like we did with H1N1.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the public health officer made it clear in her press conference yesterday, along with the CEO of the Tlicho Community Services Agency, we are aware of a cluster of MRSA cases in some regions in the Territories. It’s important for people to know we are on top of that, that they should not be panicked about it. Mr. Speaker, the system, as a whole, has been working and putting enormous efforts over the last number of months to make sure that our process for infection control in our facilities are strong and clear. The public health officer has been...

I think the Member is mixing up the facts here, because the situations that he’s brought to my attention are cases where our residents got approval for exception pain clinic appointments in Edmonton or wherever two or three years ago and then that process continued on under medical travel, which is against the policy, and we need to make sure that everyone follows the Medical Travel Policy. When they get an approval for pain clinic or something under exception, they are required to go back to the physician to make sure that the doctor follows up. So where they’re having no doctor intervention...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is -- and I think it’s something that everyone agrees in the Territories -- that we have one of the most, if not the most, generous benefits program under our medical travel, as well as extended health benefits. It is really important that we maintain the integrity of the program and that we make sure that everybody follows the rules. So anybody who is not approved under medical travel or extended health benefits is because they do not meet the program guidelines. That’s what we expect the staff to do with respect to this policy and...

I’m not sure what files he’s talking about and we can’t talk about private files here. I do want to say that our Medical Travel Policy, I don’t think he’s talking about the Medical Travel Policy because medical travel comes when our residents are approved for a procedure outside of the NWT and we cover for that. It comes from what the original procedure is that they were approved and our policy is sound. We found out that the policy was not applied properly and we made sure that whoever was approving those procedures was informed about the fact that those procedures they were approving are not...

Yes, every health centre and staff at the health centre and hospitals are aware of what symptoms to watch for and what precautions to take to make sure that this does not get contracted or spread once contacted. So, yes, there is a very close monitoring going on of all infection cases in all health centres. Dr. Kandola’s office keeps very close touch in that they know exactly what numbers and what the trends are and fighting aggressively on this situation. Thank you.

Yes, every health authority, every health centre, every authority has proper guidelines about how to monitor, prevent and follow up any infection possibilities. They do regular testing and take samples and make sure they are sent and tested. All of the trends are monitored by health care staff in every community and region and it is guided by a public health officer, Dr. Kandola’s office. So Members and the public should be assured that there is very stringent and aggressive monitoring going on and that all proper steps are taken. We understand now that there are some clusters in communities...