Tom Beaulieu

Mr. Speaker, I have no issue with the medical travel people talking to the hotels to see if something like this can be established for our medical travel patients. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don’t have the calculations on a percentage basis; however, the amount paying out to the Charlotte Vehus Home, $1.459 million, and the total funding allocated to this line object was $912,000. It was necessary to put $547,000 into it. The change, I guess, in percentage would be moving from $912,000 up to $1,459 million.

In the Billy Moore Home the change is from total funding of $383,000 up to $686,000, for a total adjustment or increase of $303,000. We’ve never had less, this has never cost less than the total funding since what we have recorded here. Even since 2005...

The bank is managed and established by the Canadian Blood Services. If we are going to proceed with any campaign or any programs, it would be working with the Canadian Blood Services.

Thank you. It’s an award, it’s an RFP process. Through the request for proposals we determine which is the best value to the authorities and it’s awarded based on that. So this deficit funding, essentially what happens is when the health authority has a contract that they have to continue to run these two homes almost like a non-discretionary funding, in essence there’s just no possible way that we could get the costs from running these two homes from approximately $2.1 million down to $1.2 million and expect to continue to run these two homes. So this money is put in for that.

As I said...

Although you can donate anywhere in Canada, the NWT government does not specifically have a program dedicated to stem cell. However, we have advised the authorities and have shared information with the authorities, that should somebody in the authorities and within their various authorities across the Territories want to donate stem cells, then they have that ability to do so, and we provided that information. As far as an awareness campaign to the general public, we haven’t done anything on that at this time.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Built into the contract is an escalation of 2.9 percent, an annual increase. I think that so far that contract has been moving along, from our understanding, between Stanton and the provider. I don’t believe we have done a review, but I could check to see if the review has been done and advise the Minister, but I don’t know if there’s been a review done recently.

I know there is a standard of practice, like I have indicated earlier, for the health practitioners to see the patient. However, I’m sure that this happens. I’ll have the deputy minister contact the CEO from the health authority to ensure that is happening across the Sahtu.

That’s a very tough question. It’s something that only the doctor or the surgeon can answer. They are going to determine, based on the condition of the patient, on whether or not the person should be released. If the patient is unhappy, that they think they’re being released from the hospital too early, yes, they do have an avenue where we have had situations down south, in Edmonton to be exact, where the family felt that the patient was being released too early. They contacted us. We contacted the medical people and the person got to stay a couple of extra days. I mean, there is something in...

Our activities, when we’re dealing with patients of any location in the Northwest Territories, is to use the clinical guideline practices and that if an individual comes in, the nurse is obligated to give them an examination. If they determine that it’s something minor and they can give them some medication, then that may be a decision, but otherwise, they should be following the policy. It’s being monitored by our Health and Social Services department with the health and social services authorities across the North.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess not so much as a policy but more of a clinical practice. A decision as to when the patient is released is a clinical decision made by the physician that’s responsible for that patient.