Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Last week I talked about medical travel and the policy and how it needs to be fixed up. I have questions today for the Minister of Health and Social Services. It was brought to my attention last week, and the Minister knows that we do lack some services in the communities, specifically psychiatrists, psychologists and, to put it into perspective, child psychiatrists
I would like to ask the Minister, in terms of dealing with medical travel, when we have children that don’t have access to some of these services that we are lacking in the NWT, sometimes our families have to take their children down south to see a specialist and sometimes these individuals are non-status so they’re not covered in terms of paying for the airfare. They have to pay partial airfare for their children when they go down as well as cover accommodations, or if accommodations come up by somebody who is status, then they’re removed. I would like to ask the Minister how are these going to be addressed in the Medical Travel Policy moving forward.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister of Health, Mr. Abernethy.
Mr. Speaker, what I can say is that we are doing a review of medical travel and we are certainly hearing the concerns that are being brought up by the Member and by committee and by the public at large. There is no question that we’re certainly having some challenges with the way that medical travel works today. What I can say is we hear the Member. I will take the information he’s providing. If he has any additional information, please get it to us so that we can include it in the review. As far as how it works out, we need to do that and we need to bring it to committee for discussion. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, my questions are arising because we’re lacking some services in the NWT. I know the department is looking at developing physician recruitment and possibly developing a pool of physicians here in Yellowknife. What’s lacking there is we don’t have psychiatrists or psychologists that we do need in the small communities for so many different issues.
Would the Minister be looking to address these concerns of medical travel, look at doing a recruitment on psychiatrists for the NWT? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, we’re always looking to fill the established positions that we have. We will continue to go out and actively recruit physicians and physician specialists to fill the positions that exist within the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, we already have a high cost of living. We are adding more costs to our long-term residents of the Northwest Territories and we’re asking them to front costs on medical travel for their children and family members that are non-status.
Can the Minister give me a timeline on the revision of this Medical Travel Policy that can come before committee so we can start working on that? Does he have a timeline so we will see the revision of this Medical Travel Policy? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, as the Member knows and all of the committee knows, there are a number of initiatives going on with the Department of Health and Social Services. I am a new Minister. I have been a Minister far less than a week at this point. I’ve asked for an opportunity to meet with committee to discuss these exact types of things, to talk about where we stand on a number of projects and seek committee’s assistance as we move forward. I don’t really have a date for the conclusion of this medical travel review just yet, but I certainly am looking forward to discussing that with committee. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A lot of our concerns that have come up are from people who work for the GNWT, but I just want to know that in the Medical Travel Policy, would the Minister work with the Department of Human Resources to address these employees of the GNWT get time off, possibly paid time off when they have to escort their family members, children, down south when we don’t have the services up here in the Northwest Territories? Is he willing to work with the Department of Human Resources so that the policy does reflect our GNWT employees and they can get time with pay on these travels? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, the GNWT has one of the most generous benefit packages available for all employees in the Northwest Territories. We provide significant amounts of sick leave, annual leave and special leave which may be used for a variety of different reasons. These benefits of employment that we do have are negotiated with our unions. We would obviously have to have a discussion with Health and Social Services, who in turn would have to have a discussion with their unions. The bottom line is we will certainly raise that with HR, but they will have to have that discussion with the union if that is something that the union is interested in and also the employer is interested in. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
