Thank you. Page 8-19, information item, program delivery support, active positions. Agreed?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Page 8-20 and 8-21, activity summary, health services programs, operations expenditure summary, $179.791 million. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have a question relative to the numbers on page 8-21. From 2009-10 revised estimates we’ve got $185 million give or take and in 2010-11 we go to about $180 million. So that’s a fairly large reduction. If I look on the next page it looks as though the reductions are basically to authorities for the provision of their various services and I just wondered what kind of an impact these reductions are going to have on the ability of the authorities to provide their services and, secondly, is this reduction related to the lack of renewal of THAF funding, which isn’t shown in the budget. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Member is right; this section has a sunset of THAF of $3.1 million, but it also has investments of $10.82 million that goes to various areas that constitutes the biggest amount of the plus and minus of that item. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Lee. Committee, page 8-21, activity summary, health services programs, operations expenditure summary, $179.791 million. Agreed?
Agreed.
Mr. Krutko, is that page 8-21?
Go ahead.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. In regard to services, you talk about different services, some out-of-territory services and also in-territorial. What about those people that come from the South, use our medical services and then leave back to southern Canada. How is that calculated in regard to expenditures? I mean, it’s an unforeseen cost, but there is a lot of transition and migration from workers at the mines, oil and gas, whatever, but there is a cost associated with those people. So in expenditures, is that part of these expenditures that you’ve put forward, or is there an allocation of a certain amount of money that’s allocated for that type of expense where we do have a lot of transient people coming and going at any one time? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Minister Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Member is right; we do get people dropping in our health centres and hospitals. Anyone who doesn’t have an NWT health card, they would be billed to their host provinces and territories and the billings are determined by national agreements that we talked about earlier. There’s a very set number of dollars that we are allowed to bill each other. So the money is recouped. Thank you.
Just on that, I know we have had some challenges in collecting from different organizations, territories, in regard to Nunavut, we’ve had challenges collecting from the federal government. So how successful are we in collecting from those jurisdictions when we submit an invoice in regard to those individuals who come here from other jurisdictions? Have we been paid or are there any outstanding amounts that are out there that we should know of? Thank you.
As the deputy minister stated, we have a portability provision. All the provinces and territories know that our people travel to each other’s jurisdictions and they have a pretty clear guideline on paying for that. So as long as we bill other jurisdictions, those are paid. Now, obviously we want to make sure we bill for every service we render to anybody who is not from here. Every health centre has that function incorporated into their finance office. That is a course of business. In Inuvik the hospital does that, Stanton does that, and any of the clinics, and the headquarters, through the DM’s office, monitors reciprocal billing and collection. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Lee. Anything further, Mr. Krutko?
That’s okay. Thanks.
Thank you, committee. We’re on page 8-21, activity summary, health services programs, operations expenditure summary, $179.791 million. Agreed?
Agreed.
Page 8-22, activity summary, health services programs, grants and contributions, grants, $40 million; contributions, $134.771 million. Excuse me, committee. Grants, $40,000; contributions, $134.771 million; total grants and contributions, $134.811 million. Committee agreed?
Agreed.
Thank you. Moving on. Page 8-25, activity summary. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I mentioned in my general comments this area was an extremely highly volatile issue about a year ago and I wanted to know in terms of proposed... Okay, I’ll start again. The changes are proposed to be put in place on September 1, 2010, and the Minister has advised, I think, that there is some work going on at this point. I wondered if I could get a bit more information in detail about just exactly what is happening at the moment. There are no consultations certainly that the public can take part in at this point, so I would like some information as to what work is going on, when consultation with the public will start, et cetera, et cetera. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On this issue, I, as Minister, committed to the Standing Committee on Social Programs to seek input from the public, obviously. I have just had a substantive update on that. I am going to be seeking to go to Cabinet for Cabinet input. I will also be seeking to go to the Standing Committee on Social Programs as soon as we can organize that. We are ready to do that now and also we need to have consult with the public working group on that. So we are in the process of communicating that to the standing committee, so we can give the committee members an update and seek their input on where we are because there has been some substantive work on that and will be interested in sharing that with the Member. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister for that information. I look forward to our briefing. I guess I just would like a bit of confirmation in terms of timing. I get the impression...(inaudible)...
...(inaudible)...busy schedule, but we would like at least an hour or two to give you a briefing on what we have so far and seek your input. Thank you.
...(inaudible)...fast as they can in dealing with this because the sooner it gets to the public, the better it is. There is going to be an awful lot of interest in this and even from the first of May to the first of September is a very short time. So let’s get at it. Thank you.
Activity summary, supplementary health programs, operations expenditure summary, $23.074 million.
Agreed.
Page 8-26, activity summary, supplementary health programs, grants and contributions, contributions $12.603 million. Agreed?
Agreed
Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a quick question. I thought I had heard, I can’t quite remember where, in the last few days that the program review office was looking at some of the costs of medical travel. Could I get a confirmation from the Minister that that is so and if there are any findings that she can reveal at this point? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. For clarity, we are on page 8-26. Minister Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There is a lot of work being done on this area and I would like to ask the deputy minister to update the Members. Thank you.
Deputy Minister Meade.
The program office has begun looking at this and we are doing a bit of rescoping, because it is not just about the travel costs but using some of our case management decisions. So we are looking at it both from what they originally were doing and how the department needs to get some of this information around our service delivery. So it is a work in progress. I will add it is a very complicated issue around our access to information and its interpretation but, yes, we are on it. It is a big issue and I think it will give us a lot of information on how to better provide service in case management, not just about managing costs of medical travel. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Meade. Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. We are on page 8-26, activity summary, supplementary health programs, grants and contributions, contributions, $12.603 million. Agreed?
Agreed
We are on page 8-29, activity summary, supplementary health programs. Mr. Krutko.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I think that these community health programs, especially when it comes to the aging population in the Northwest Territories, which we are realizing, I know, from comments from the Minister, which stipulated that the elders population is almost 50 percent and increased over the last number of years. I can vouch for that on the basis of my home community in which they did a study to see exactly how many elders were from Fort McPherson and they counted 126 elders between the ages of 60 and 97 years old.
I think it shows that we do have a large number of our population in a lot of our communities throughout the Northwest Territories and I think that we, as government, have to find ways of accommodating that population in the Northwest Territories by assisting them by way of some means of providing seniors care, accommodating them through housing and accommodating them through care facilities, long-term care facilities, residential care and also in regards to hospital care.
I think at that point, we do have structures around that; the dementia centre, the hospitals we do have in our regions. I think it is important that we, as government, find a way to deal with this challenge that we are facing. It is not only here, it is across Canada, but I think that we have to find a way to accommodate our aging population. So I would like to ask the Minister, are there any plans of working with the Housing Corporation or CMHC, or whoever, Health Canada, to find a way to deal with this challenge that we are going to be facing, which is already upon us, and try to accommodate those people, when they basically get on in age and require special attention and care? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Minister Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Member is right; this is a crucial and big emerging issue. It is permeating into all of our program areas. It is not just a long-term care issue.
Seniors population right now -- about 3,500 out of 40,000-plus of the Northwest Territories population -- is the fastest growing segment of our population. It has grown by 54 percent over the last 10 years while the general population only grew by 4 percent. I think that speaks to what challenges and opportunities we are dealing with.
The department, in all program areas, looks at how to support the seniors and how to maintain their healthy living. That has to be a big part as well, as well as looking at their continuum of care. Obviously, institutionalization or the facilities are the last resort. I think that we need to also pay attention to providing home care support and other support, because I think that most seniors want to have an independent healthy life as much as possible. And as much as possible, they want to be in their communities and they want to be taken care of by their own people. That has to be front and centre of our strategy.
We know right now, from the demographics we have, we need to have at least 40 beds of long-term care in the next little while. We are making progress by doing a long-term care facilities review in the Territories and also working on a prototype, so that we can have a ready-made long-term care facility that can be placed wherever, depending on how this House makes the decision on where it should go. There are many different areas that we are working on within the department. Thank you.
Communities do want to try to maintain their loved ones and their elders in their home communities as long as possible and hopefully live out their days in their home communities without having to leave. I think it is important that we do find a way to accommodate our elders and ensure that they are having some sort of special living arrangements and also looking at ways of accommodating them so they do stay in their home communities. So I think it is important that we do find a way to work around it. I know that you mentioned 40 beds. Is there any idea of where this facility may be located?
No, Mr. Chairman. The Member knows that is not going to be solely my decision. What I meant by that is looking at the demographics territorial-wide and looking at how big our senior populations are, and what ages they are, and knowing all of the other indicators that we, as a government, have to prepare for increasing long-term care beds.
With that, I’d like to move a motion and suggest that they consider Fort McPherson for a permanent long-term care facility, in light of the 120 seniors we have over the age of 60. I can state that there is a definite need. Mr. Chair, I’d like to move a motion.
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The motion is being distributed. You may so move.
