Sandy Lee

Mr. Speaker, it’s general knowledge that these program changes were consulted on, discussed, debated in this House and outside this House between 2003 and 2007. The policies were changed in September of 2007. I do not have all of the calculations on what came about to achieving that. I have been responsible for implementing those, but the policy objective was not a cost-cutting measure and it is not necessary to make sure that we stay within whatever is budgeted under the Supplementary Health Program. So it is wrong to say we are making these changes on the backs of the seniors. That is not...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. While we’re on the topic of Mr. Tommy Douglas, let me say that he happens to be one of my heroes because I was born in a country where there is no health care. I was born to a single mother who could not afford to keep me in an incubator, when I was born seven weeks too early, less than two pounds. I couldn’t drink breast milk. She had to feed me by spoon. The doctor told her you have to watch her to see if she’s going to make it. I value Canadian health care in Canada. Supplementary health care is not the same thing as the Canadian Health Plan. It is important that we...

I have asked the department to look at that process to see if we could borrow from that. I’m prepared to make a commitment to the Members here, that I will come back with an outline of how we propose to do the consultation and where the meetings will be and how they’re going to take place for the next little while. So consultation and consultative approach as we go forward to improve the changes are very much at the table and I’m prepared to work with the Members and the public to do that.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I had the opportunity to meet with the executive of the NWT Seniors’ Society at lunch hour and I’d like to just recognize…I know there are lots of seniors in the gallery and I am sure they will all be recognized in due course, but I don’t want to take up all the time. I’ll just say President Tom Wilson, Mr. Leon Peterson from Fort Smith, Ms. Barb Hood, executive director of the NWT Seniors’ Society, Esther Braden is sitting next to her, Ms. Eileen Collins from Hay River and Mrs. Bea Campbell from Fort Smith. I see other members sitting there next to them. Thank you, Mr...

I believe my statement was that we would keep the policy intent, which is to make this policy more fair and equitable. Income tests are a mechanism to achieve that, but obviously all the details are up for discussion. So we will go to the public with what we have learned, we will ask the public about what we need to consider, what we need to change. I have learned a lot in this process. I have made it clear from day one, December 19th, when I got the first e-mail, I learned new things and I responded to everybody, saying thank you for giving me that information, I will take that into...

Mr. Speaker, I can categorically tell the Member that he is wrong when he says nothing is being done about tracking down those people with NWT health care cards when they should not...We have implemented an audit program. The audit office of the GNWT has been sending letters...We’ve been doing auditing of all of the claims that we are receiving on NWT health care and if there are too many services being rendered outside of the provinces, we’re writing them and we’re asking them to document them and if they don’t give us the documents we call them and we are tracking them down. We have been...

It appears that in Simpson the Deh Cho Health Authority is in close touch with the Stanton authority. The community health rep or even the maintenance person, whoever has a vehicle, will go and meet whoever is arriving. That is the process right now. I will review that to see if we can tighten that up any further.

Yes. Right now the policy or the process is that the local taxi company is advised. They would like to get the call by 4 o’clock the day before for anybody coming. I understand it does work most of the time, but once in a while the passengers might arrive at the airport and not find anybody there, and they’ll have to call the number that’s indicated at the airport.

I’m happy to advise the Member that in fact the Department of Health and Social Services is one of the few departments that actually reduced their top management. We reduced the positions at headquarters by 13 per cent in the last round. We went from two ADMs to one ADM, and we have reduced a director position by one. That went unnoticed, but we did all of that in the last six months.

The second thing. While I support — and I do…. There’s no question that a midwifery program is the way to go in the future, but there has not been any evidence to suggest that it is replacing some regular medical...

I don’t think we need to demonstrate that this program is useful. I don’t think we need to have any more discussions on that.

We need way more than $100,000 to create the second position. A midwife position comes with a need for about three more positions, so it’s about a four PY idea.

About the THAF funding. We do not have any extra room in that funding. This midwife position at Yellowknife health is currently being funded under THAF. As the Member knows very well, THAF funding will expire in ’09–10. We do need to look at how we are funding these positions. This is a valuable position, but it’s...