Sandy Lee

I think I have a good idea which community of the region the Member is referring to. I’ll commit to the Member that I will revisit to see where we are with that in terms of the conversation we’ve had with the community leadership. I will lend as much support as I can to make that Plan of Care Committee be established in that community.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Plan of Care is something that has been provided for with the recent amendments to the Child and Family Services Act and is one that we would like to see implemented in every community.

The department staff have been going to the regions to work with community leadership and the communities to help them set them up. We have not had as much response as we would like. We will continue to work with the communities to support them to get this set up, because it is a good avenue for the communities to participate and have some say on the children.

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...

As I have committed already, I am looking into this; the department is looking into it right now. I will get back to the Member by the end of the day. Given the privacy and confidentiality of the patient, I think I’ll just have to leave it at that, and I will get back to the Member.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member has brought this to my attention. At about 1 o’clock today I asked my department to take a look at that and see what we can do in that situation.

Non-medical travel is not always approved, but I do appreciate the circumstances that the Member has brought forward, and I will commit to the Member that I will get back to him, hopefully by the end of the day.

There are a lot of details and facts to this; it’s a highly unusual situation. I will get back to the Member. Because this is a non-medical escort, there are some additional questions and facts that we need to look into. We’re doing that, and we’ll get back to the Member.

The short answer to that is that if a non-medical escort is approved, then all of the incidental costs would be approved.

Generally a non-medical escort is approved where a patient needs a family member for physical support or for language support, where there might be some interpreter services. I understand that in this circumstance it doesn’t fall into either of the two, but that is a general situation where the non-medical escort would be approved.