Lesa Semmler

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, you know, we are looking at this and we have -- we are doing some work around this. And so the money that has been allocated to this, you know, we -- in order for us to know exactly what services we're going to provide and how we're going to provide them and, you know, we are looking at this program in particular, so right now, how it is is that it's just what was averaged last year. We are -- you know, that's what's going to be budgeted for this year. However, you know, we'll be -- like I said, we'll be looking at ways that we can -- with this funding and how...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am glad to take that information back to discuss with the department. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, when somebody is admitted and they're known to, you know, if they're -- say, if they're admitted for something else, like pneumonia and all that, their history is taken into account and so they would manage their -- them within their plan of care during their admission and however that would be -- you know, whether it is through medication management, it would be part of their admission process. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. That is one of the parts that we are looking at. Because as long as somebody -- once they're approved for medical travel, normally we'll go through our processes, and so what part of that is making sure, like, you know, anyone who's travelling from A to B, this is the -- this is what will allow for -- you know, coming up with a standard of what those costs could potentially be that we would normally reimburse for. And so I think there's -- then that's why I said it's a more of a modernization. It's being able to do things different and to allow for more flexibility...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, that's due to the renegotiation of the Northern Wellness Agreement. So once we have that agreement finalized, that the money will go back there. So it's just because we're in -- by the time the budget is done, the agreement ended and so we're in negotiations for the future agreement, multi-year agreement. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am going to pass that over to the ADM if that's okay to explain that math.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'll have to follow up with the Member. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the way that this works is that it's at per needs. So if a person is requiring it, now we have extra staff that we can use to dedicate that person to being able to provide detox. And so normally up until now, all of our hospitals did do this in some shape or form. They -- you know, when people were coming in, they were detoxing them. Sometimes there would be admissions when people were needing detox before going to the hospital. But these would never have been funded. So they were always just on top of being an admission into the hospital. And now we have...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, as I mentioned earlier that the reallocation of the medical travel funding at the NTHSSA to other pressure areas throughout their authorities is because we were able to get the funding through the NIHB agreement to actually pay for things that were for NIHB. We have been offsetting NIHB costs for many, many, many years, and so this last -- this last couple years, we were able to negotiate a special allotment fund to pay for a big portion of that, and so we were able to use -- because that's one of the things that was a deficit driver. When we got that...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, when we have surge capacity, these are unpredictable time -- like, when they happen. So normally we would just use the staff on hand, overtime, and other contract nurses if we can from the department. Like, we would just move people around. And so that's within this public health reform that -- you know, the nurses that are working in public health, the one thing that we only have is we only have nurses that work in public health here in Yellowknife and I believe in Fort Smith, in Hay River, and in Inuvik, and the duties of public health are -- we rely on CHNs...