Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to table two documents today. One is the policy statement from the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada. It is a policy statement, entitled Returning Birth to Aboriginal, Rural and Remote Communities. I also have a report here from the same organization. This one is entitled A Report on Best Practices for Returning Birth to Rural and Remote Aboriginal Communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Item 15, notices of motion. Item 16, notices of motion for first reading of bills. Item 17, motions. There is a call for Motion 4-17(4). Item 18, first reading of bills. Item 19, second reading of bills. Item 20, consideration in Committee of the Whole of bills and other matters: Tabled Document 9-17(4), NWT Main Estimates, 2013-2014, Health and Social Services.
By authority given to me as Speaker, by Motion 1-17(4), I hereby authorize the House to sit beyond the daily sitting hour of adjournment to consider business before the House, with Mrs. Groenewegen in the chair.
I’d like to call Committee of the Whole to order. The Speaker has indicated the matters before committee today. What is the wish of the committee? Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The committee wants to continue consideration of Tabled Document 9-17(4), NWT Main Estimates, 2013-2014. The committee would like to continue the Department of Health and Social Services. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. We will continue with this after a brief recess.
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Okay, I’d like to call Committee of the Whole back to order. When we left off on Friday we were on the Department of Health and Social Services, page 8-13. I’d like to ask the Minister if he’d like to bring witnesses into the Chamber so that we may resume the consideration of Health and Social Services. Mr. Beaulieu.
Yes, Madam Chair, I would.
Is committee agreed?
Agreed.
Thank you. I’ll ask the Sergeant-at-Arms to please escort the witnesses to the table.
Minister Beaulieu, one more time for the record, could you please introduce your witnesses.
Thank you, Madam Chair. To my right I have Debbie DeLancey, deputy minister of Health and Social Services. To my left is Jeannie Mathison, director of finance, Health and Social Services. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. We left off on page 8-13, Health and Social Services, operations expenditure summary, directorate, $8.559 million, and when we recessed on Friday there was Mr. Bromley, Ms. Bisaro and Mr. Yakeleya on the list to speak. Are any of those three Members interested in speaking to page 8-13? Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to follow up on a couple of things on the Territorial Health System Sustainability Initiative. The Minister mentioned that was coming to an end. He’s responsible for negotiating, hopefully, a new one. What fiscal year does it end, will it no longer be active?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The current agreement is scheduled to expire March 31, 2014.
I think the Minister said we can’t just stop the program when this ends. We have to fund it. How much of the funding, the THSSI funds are being used to fund core programs?
We’re just going to quickly add up the number here. I think it is $6.5 million.
I just want to be clear. I know the Minister made a clear commitment not to drop these programs, if it’s not renewed that we would fund them. Obviously, if we get to that point, we’ll be asking some hard questions because the money has to come from somewhere. I just appreciate being on top of that and knowing what the timing is.
The emergency medical records, we’re hoping they will lead to some savings. I’m just wondering if that is still considered a potential as well as a more effective health care delivery. Is there a potential we will realize some savings from it as well?
We believe that the electronic medical records will provide some savings further down the road. The immediate benefit is to the patient care at this time. We’re doing it because we do see an immediate benefit to the way we care for our patients.
Really, that’s it. I can see that if we do care for our patients better, hopefully there will be some preventative aspects and the long-term costs will give us some savings as well. I will leave it at that. That’s all I have for this page.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. I’ll now go to Ms. Bisaro. You were on the list to speak to this page on Friday.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I do have some more questions on this page. My first one has to do with medical travel and the review that is apparently ongoing. My first question has to do with when that review is intended to be completed. I think the Minister has spoken about it before, but I don’t think we’ve had a definitive answer. I’d like to know from the Minister when we can expect the results of the medical travel review.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I will have Deputy Minister DeLancey run through the process and come down to when we can produce some results.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Ms. DeLancey.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Actually, the review of the Medical Travel Program is completed and Members did receive a briefing on that just over a year ago, the Standing Committee on Social Programs. Based on the outcome of the review, we have two distinct and interrelated pieces of work going on. One is a development of a discussion paper on a proposed new policy. The Medical Travel Policy is a Cabinet-approved policy. It’s quite out of date. It’s quite complex. From the several reviews that have been done, we are drawing together a summary of the changes that are required and how this might be addressed. That will eventually have to go to public consultation.
The second piece of work is actually looking at the program. The most recent consultant’s review, which was completed about 18 months ago, identified many ways that the program could be made more efficient and more responsive, so we are working with a team at Stanton Health Authority, who administers medical travel, to look at a program design using more lean processes to create a more efficient program.
Those are two separate but very related pieces of work that are moving together in tandem. We had hoped to be further along but we encountered a number of delays, first of all, in staffing. We had to go out twice just in order to find people to carry this work forward. We now are fully staffed and are hoping to see progress over the next year.
Thank you, Ms. DeLancey. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks to Ms. DeLancey for the clarification. My frustration was rising because it has been a very long time. I appreciate it’s a difficult issue and it is very out of date, but I’m glad to hear that there’s going to be public consultation on this because everybody who has ever had to travel for a medical reason is going to have an opinion on it, similar to education. Everybody has an opinion on how we should be educating our children because we’ve all been through it. I’ll just leave that at that and the sooner the better, I guess, in terms of getting a new policy out there.
Sort of falling from that, one of the things that Members have heard about with changes to the system and so on is the establishment of a… I’m not sure if they’re one and the same, but kind of a territorial support network or a call centre for physicians and for communities who can contact a central call centre for advice and with questions. I’d like to know if I could get an update on where that’s at. It’s been a long time in coming, from my recollection, so when will this support network or the call centre system be set up, in place and running?
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Beaulieu.
Thank you, Madam Chair. With the positions that are in the current budget under review, we would be able to roll out, I guess sort of like a pilot for TSN, this fiscal year.
I presume the Minister does not mean the sports network. I presume he means the Territorial Support Network. Thanks to the Minister for that.
I did want to ask, as well, there is a review, I understand, of the ISDM, the Integrated Service Delivery Model. That has also been a long time in the making or in the offing, so I’d like to know from the Minister where the review of the ISDM is at this particular time and when it will be finished.
We have hired a doctor to do the review of the Integrated Service Delivery Model and we’re expecting the results of his work to be completed in August.
I hope that’s August of 2013, not ’14.
Another question I have revolves around legislation. There are a number of pieces of legislation that have been referenced. I know I spoke in the House last week about the Child and Family Services Act and legislation changes or amendments with that particular act. The Minister has talked about governance and governance changes, and that we want to try and streamline our authorities and provide a different model of governance for our authorities. I believe that there is a governance act that is being proposed at some point in time. Could I get the Minister to confirm that, and if that is the case, is he intending to go to public consultation on that act?
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Ms. DeLancey.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, the HHISSAA, the Hospital and Health Insurance and Social Services Administration Act – I think I may have gotten that wrong – does establish boards of management and the powers of boards of management. In order to undertake governance reform at the legislative level, we would have to bring forward changes to that act. They are on our legislative agenda right now. Once we have undertaken or completed the discussions that are going on currently with the existing authorities, as we’ve previously advised this House, we would be bringing forward, for public discussion, a discussion paper. We have had a couple drafts of that discussion paper that have gone to the Joint Leadership Council and we’ve been asked for changes, so it’s still being put together. We would then go to the standing committee, eventually to the public, and then there would be a more formal public consultation process as is required for any legislative changes. Thank you.
Thanks to the deputy minister. I guess, as I tend to always do, I would suggest that standing committee would be better served by getting the drafts earlier rather than later. You may find that input from standing committee on the draft may have some impacts on the next draft. I know we usually get stuff when it’s kind of finished, but very often if we get it when it’s halfway through or three-quarters of the way through, it will develop a faster and better product in the end.
The last thing I wanted to mention has to do with accountability. That’s another area that the directorate, I believe, has been working on, again, the accountability of our health authorities. Sort of hand in hand with that is service partnership agreements which have been, according to the Human Resources Minister, established and there is a pilot that is going on.
To the service partnership agreements, have those all been signed? Are they up and running? My understanding is they are. My question has to do with whether or not there are service partnership agreements with each and every one of our health authorities. I’ll stop there. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Beaulieu.
Thank you, Madam Chair. There will be a lot of detail and bureaucratic response, so I will ask the deputy to respond to the Member on that.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Ms. DeLancey.
Thank you, Madam Chair. There is one service partnership agreement that has been signed between the Department of Human Resources and the Department of Health and Social Services on behalf of all eight authorities. We do have a small working group between ourselves and the Department of Human Resources which includes one of our CEOs. We have involved all eight CEOs in the development of a service partnership agreement.
We are now, as Members may have heard previously from the Department of Human Resources, doing a pilot project for the government. We signed this agreement off in the fall. We are finalizing a monitoring and evaluation framework. All of the authorities are actively participating in reviewing that framework, making sure that the kind of things that are being measured are the kind of outcomes that they care about and that they feel will need to be improved in order to make us more efficient. That work is rolling out. We don’t expect to have anything to share in terms of a report, though, until the end of the one-year pilot project. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. DeLancey. Ms. Bisaro, your 10 minutes are up. I’m going to ask Mr. Yakeleya, do you have comments still on page 8-13? You were on the list on Friday. Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Madam Chair. My questions have to do with medevacs in the Northwest Territories. I want to ask the department when will this exist, and who and when will this contract be up for renewal, or when is the department going to go out for additional airline companies to look at this contract.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The existing medevac contract has been extended for us to do a thorough and proper review. The RFP will hopefully be out in April and we’re expecting to have a new contract in place by September 30, 2014.
Madam Chair, the new contract is next year, so they are extending it until next year. As the Minister indicated, due to the evaluation or analysis of the medevacs, in that case what is the backup plan if it’s not possible to get medevacs out of the communities. What is the backup plan?
Madam Chair, I think I will ask the deputy minister to respond to that. I’m not 100 percent sure that I understand the question. I think the deputy can respond.
