Sandy Lee

Just two points on that. The first point, I will commit to get back to the Members on how the accounting was done in terms of the comparison between BP and the new funding we’re getting, because we did just go through the BP process. There’s a program there, money for respite care, and we are bringing new money under THSSI under supplementary appropriations. So there are some accounting rules that we had to follow that I would get the Member the detail on.

The second part is, I want to tell the Member, and I’ve said it again, THSSI funding is a lot less than THAF. So we are going to see...

Mr. Speaker, if the Member is speaking about the Medical Travel Policy, we do have rules. If there are rules for change, I am obviously willing to look at that with the Member, but I think his question might be a little bit too broad about flexibility. We do try to have clear rules and apply them. If the Member has any suggestions for change, I am willing to listen to them. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That is the rule. I agree with the Member that it is not commonsensical. It is under review. We are looking to change that. Thank you.

I definitely feel that notion, that idea does deserve merit for us to further explore. I think, under the given resources, I don’t think we can create an entire office, but I think there is definitely room for us to consider it. I would like to further work with the Members to consider some kind of appeal for certain benefits under health care. It’s usually about insurance services, what’s insured, what’s not, medical travel, maybe supp health benefits.

Under supp health benefits we are definitely looking at some kind of appeal mechanism. Student Financial Assistance has that. I don’t know what...

Mr. Speaker, as the Member knows, we are reviewing the Medical Travel Program. It is quite an extensive review. I look forward to bringing the results of that review to the standing committee so that we could work to make the program better. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, perhaps I answered all the questions the first time, but I just want to... Sometimes that just invites other questions. Mr. Speaker, I just want to let the Member know that the scenario that he put together in his Member’s statement, it is the rule that requires medical travel to start from the NWT is a problem for students who are working and living and going to school somewhere else. That has been red flagged. As the Member knows, we are reviewing the Medical Travel Policy and that specific issue is something that will need to be changed. It will be changed and we are working on...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Family violence is the deliberate use of force to control another person. Abusers do not just lose their tempers or simply have problems with anger management, they choose to hurt and control their victims.

Family violence is a community issue; it takes a community response. I would like to highlight two initiatives that the Department of Health and Social Services has spearheaded with the Coalition Against Family Violence as a part of the NWT Family Violence Action Plan Phase II.

Mr. Speaker, the first is the recent release of Supporting Northern Women. This curriculum...

It may or it may not, but the important thing is that I think our people need to feel that they have a place they could go to that should be outside of the political process, that can’t be depending on the level or the strength of advocacy capacity of certain Members or the heartbreaking side of the stories. I think we could all benefit from having some sort of objective standard by which our people know exactly what they qualify for, what the rules are, why do they not qualify, or do they qualify, and if there is any room for improvement it has to come back here for us to make the decision...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. An ombudsman or some kind of an arbiter or in many cases, no matter what Health and Social Services issues, they end up on the Minister’s desk. The important thing in a society based on rule of law and rule of rules, we need clear rules. Even an ombudsman would need a rule to arbitrate or rule on these things.

On the specific issue in question that we have here -- just so that Members know that the Department of Health and Social Services is not completely without common sense -- the Members could imagine cases where, I mean, see some merit as to why we need to require...

I’ll have to get the details, but I would venture to guess that actual service of that specialist that we would have to pay in wherever place that they go would be as high, if not higher, than the medical travel and related expenses. There is a formula for the services like neurologists and inter-jurisdictional billing and such. So we would be paying for that specialist in Edmonton or wherever, while at the same time we are paying for our in-house specialist.

Specialists are, as you know, quite, I don’t want to say expensive, but we pay a lot of money to have somebody like a neurologist. We...