Tom Beaulieu

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. We are currently reviewing the Medical Travel Policy, the entire program. We do feel that there are some issues with the program and we are reviewing it. We have our staff in place now that will be doing a review of the program.

As far as physician costs, Stanton Hospital is a territorial hospital, so it does provide service to all of the other communities and they’re budgeted for that reason. As far as that creating a deficit, that does create a bit of a deficit, but it’s getting a lot better in the last couple of years. The deficit has gone down considerably.

Thank you. I would commit to a complete overhaul of the system, but we are looking at all of the areas, including this area. Like I indicated in the House many times, we’re looking at what it takes to keep patients in their home as long as possible before they go into long-term care. When they’re in long-term care, then we provide some physio. When they’re in extended care, we provide some physio and so on. So there are some things being done.

There are some gaps, there’s no question about it, and so we’re looking at the whole system to make sure that we can fill the gaps. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We don’t have long-term care patients in the hospital, but my understanding is that we might be talking about patients in extended care.

Right now I understand that basically what happens is that it’s based on clinical need. So the clinical need for an individual in long-term care is they get two hours’ worth of physio per week, and then they’ll get two hours’ worth of physio per week. If there’s a requirement, only two hours per month, then that’s what they get. It’s based on a clinical need of the patient. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, that is an issue, there is no doubt about it. We don’t have the nurses that can go out to a site. If there is an accident or anything right now, the nurses are not the people that end up at the site. I think it has happened in the past, but there are some barriers to nurses going out, leaving their stations to go out to an accident site or a location or to somebody who may be very sick. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are various programs available to train first responders. The Government of the NWT has developed an interdepartmental advisory committee that is actually led by MACA that includes the Department of Justice, Department of Transportation, and Health and Social Services. We are looking at all of the various areas to see what would be the best way to provide that type of training to possible first responders in the communities. Thank you.

The Department of Health and Social Services is working on what we’re referring to as a continuum of care living services for seniors. We are looking first at trying to keep the seniors in their home as long as possible, by providing support such as home care and then moving to assisted living. The next level that we’re working with NWT Housing Corporation and then, I guess, at the end if there are no other options that can keep the people in their home communities, then our last option is to move them into long-term care.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to recognize the social work students from Aurora College, Kelly Bothamley and Jacqueline Brasseur, as well as their instructor, Susan Fitzpatrick, for the Social Work Program.

I’d also like to recognize the Page from Lutselk’e, Darian Marlowe.

I agree that medical travel is more of travel where the costs at one time used to be costed out or spent or expended authority by authority, but Stanton is running the medical travel. The Stanton Territorial Hospital is running the medical travel and they’re saying that it does create part of their deficit. It’s a large chunk of their expenditures – the biggest chunk, actually, when we divide it into certain sections – but it is being reviewed. That’s the reason we have brought staff in to review it, to make sure that these costs that should be charged to other authorities are charged to other...

Thank you. Yes, we’d like to provide the same care to the people that have the same clinical needs. So if the clinical needs in one hospital are the same as the clinical needs in another hospital, then the care will be provided on an equal basis. Thank you.

Thank you. The outpatients are not given priority over in-patients. Again, all patients are prioritized. There are more outpatients, there’s no question about that. People in the hospital, mostly the extended care people, are receiving physiotherapy from one physiotherapist and we have seven physiotherapists that are doing the outpatients. So based on clinical need and also given priorities given to patients who are unable to go back to work because of issues where they would need some physiotherapy in order to get back into the workforce, but they’re not given priority over in-patients.