Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I just want to follow up on my Member’s statement wherein I spoke about Fort Liard and Nahanni Butte residents accessing health services in Fort Nelson, BC. I just wanted to speak with the Minister of Health and Social Services with regards to that.
He was travelling in my constituency in May. He heard from the residents about the type of care that they do get from Fort Nelson. Part of the barrier there is that they’re not being referred there. They’re going there and they have been using it for decades, but their travel costs aren’t being covered to go there to access that health care. So, I’d like to ask, the Minister had agreed at that time to review it, to work with his officials, to see what can be done about accessing the health services in northern BC.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The Minister of Health, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker As Canadian residents, the residents of Fort Liard can receive services anywhere in this country with no cost as long as it’s medically necessary. So if they travel down there for a doctor’s appointment or if they travel down there for an emergency situation, those costs are actually covered through reciprocal billing.
What I believe the Member is talking about is when members of the community choose to go to Fort Nelson as opposed to going to the health centre, they want their travel covered. Our recommendation is that we use the health facilities here in the Northwest Territories first and that they go to the health centre. If they get a referral out, we do cover those costs, but we don’t have an agreement with the Government of British Columbia to provide additional services to residents of the Northwest Territories.
I have asked my department to have some discussions with BC at the admin level to figure out what steps would be necessary to do that. We haven’t made it very far, unfortunately, and I don’t really have too much of an update for the Member at this time other than the fact that we are looking at it to see what needs to be done in order to allow us to do some referrals, if possible.
When the Minister talks about using our health services in Fort Liard, that’s an entirely different question, because the Minister is well aware of the other concerns with regard to people not trusting or else being dismissed by our Fort Liard Health Centre, but that’s an entirely different issue altogether.
What I’m talking about is when Alberta had the Capital Health Services we had a written agreement to use their services, their facilities, with our medevac services, et cetera, and now they’re called Alberta Health. I’d just like to ask the Minister exactly what type of arrangement or agreement do we currently have with the Government of Alberta with regard to health.
The Government of Alberta, the Alberta Health Services is our primary partner in the delivery of services. They do most of our diagnostics around things like MRIs, they are the specialists that we send our residents to, and they have a direct link and cooperation with our practitioners here in the Northwest Territories and agreements that allow them to share information, where appropriate, as long as it falls under the Health Information Act and the Access to Information.
We have agreements in place that allow us to work together and refer to them. We don’t have those same agreements with BC. It would take negotiation to set up those types of agreements, and we’ve got to do, obviously, cost-benefit analysis on that and make sure that those agreements are actually going to provide some value.
In the meantime, I do remind the Member as well as the residents of the Northwest Territories, and particularly Liard, as you travel outside of the Northwest Territories and you do go to hospitals or health centres outside of the Northwest Territories, those costs are recovered under our reciprocal billing and you shouldn’t have a cost. Where we’ve run into a difficulty with Fort Nelson is they don’t have the ability to refer back to the Northwest Territories for things like home care, physio, occupational therapy or any of the additional programs that we provide above and beyond what is consistent across this country.
I’m very pleased that at least the department is beginning the process of trying to understand the situation about having Fort Liard and Nahanni Butte residents having a travel cost. I think that’s the biggest issue, because the Minister is right; we do have reciprocal billing and we do have an agreement throughout the provinces that our health care cards are recognized in BC as well as Alberta, but it’s just a matter of getting there, seeing the services. Like I said, they’ve been doing it for decades. They’re familiar with the doctors and the dentists in those communities in northern BC.
I’d just like to ask the Minister once again, can he commit to have his department seriously look at this issue and see how much further we can go about delivering health care close to home to the residents of Fort Liard and Nahanni Butte?
I’m happy to have the department continue and re-engage in some dialogue with BC to see what it would take, but I do put some provisos around that. When a resident of the Northwest Territories chooses to go outside of this province for medical treatment that’s available in this province, we don’t cover that. What we’re talking about now is whether or not we can cover people for referrals, somebody who’s actually accessed and engaged in the system, so not people who are just making choices to travel outside but where there’s been a referral or something, we’re certainly willing to have those discussions.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Certainly, I can say unequivocally on behalf of the residents of Fort Liard and Nahanni Butte that they’re not choosing to go there. It’s just that over time they’ve developed trust issues about service of health delivery within our own system. But aside from that, if we can develop this base, the residents have a working relationship already. I’m just asking our government, let’s formalize this, let’s work a way around it, let’s continue supporting our residents getting the proper health and close to home delivery of health care that they can.
We’re committed to providing health and social services in the Northwest Territories as close to home as possible, and I hear the Member that we have some issues with Liard and the trust issues. I’d say that it’s going to be important for the future Ministers and the existing Minister as well as Members to work with our communities to find out how we can overcome some of those trust issues and re-encourage some trust and faith in the system that is available here in the Northwest Territories.
