Thank you, Ms. Mathison. Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Just under Purchased Services, from the last year's budget, it's gone up from $486,000 to $1.2 million. Can the Minister just explain what is the big jump in the increase there?
Thank you, Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The increase in the budget is $715,000, and it's for the Northern Wellness Agreement, which is funded by ISC, Indigenous Services Canada. This agreement was recently negotiated for another five-year term. In prior years, the budget used to show up in work performed on behalf of others. As part of the new accounting treatment for shared service agreements, now it's included in the overall main budget.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Just going through some of these numbers and some of my colleagues have already mentioned, knowing that we know we have a shortfall of nursing staff, that we are trying to increase staff, and I know that there is a separate budget that is going to be per our priorities, given with COVID, looking at these numbers, do we expect that this is going to increase in our budget here that we are presenting today as another additional supplemental with everything that is been carrying through COVID right now? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes. Minister.
Madam Chair, what we are doing now within our financial system is: we are trying to utilize a lot of our expenditures towards the COVID budget. That would alleviate some of our overall budget. Although I want to say "no," but I believe, as a result of the budget, it perhaps could increase. It would come in the form of a supplemental. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Further questions, Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes.
One final question: under specialty services, it hasn't gone up very much, but, when I look under the category for specialty services, my colleague says we have wait lists, we have extensive wait lists in certain areas. Without increasing this budget and without increasing the specialist numbers that we are going to have and the hard time getting these specialists, do we feel that, this budget that we have here, is this number going to increase because it costs us so much more to get extra stuff? Are we going to be able to meet the needs of our wait list with this budget this year? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes. Minister.
Madam Chair, I am going to ask Deputy Minister Cooper to answer.
Thank you, Minister. Deputy Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Certainly, our budget is based upon past experience. We have been working to try to make best use of our specialist resources and other physician resources by undertaking a review of our current configuration and to ensure that we are optimizing the taxpayer money that we have there. There has been a review that is underway between ourselves and the NT authority to look at specialist services that may be required to meet needs going forward.
At this point, we feel this is good, but we believe it's a responsible thing to do as part of our overall trying to address our deficit to ask ourselves some good questions about what kinds of services we need, what are some alternatives to delivering those services to ensure that we are optimizing taxpayer money. The answer is: we believe this is an appropriate allocation. Our focus is on trying to deliver better value for money and better management of the resources we have.
Thank you, Deputy Minister. Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Just with this, it's brought to light through COVID that we have a lot more and my colleague has related to it about mental health, going through virtual. Our doctors' appointments are virtual. By looking at our specialty services, it's $26 million here. I think about: we go into medical travel. There are a lot of costs involved with medical travel, meeting the specialist. Is there a plan, looking at these high numbers, to ways to look to save costs for our government by more virtual care specialty clinics to try get rid of some of our wait lists and maybe start using that for a lot of our cases that are sitting on these wait lists throughout the Northwest Territories? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The Member is absolutely correct. That is our intent. For the last two months, we've been looking at telehealth virtual care. We have been doing a lot of our mental health services through virtual care. This is something that we can look at once we get through this pandemic and try to find ways to be creative in our budgets. We do spend a lot of money on specialty services. That is something that we can look to in the future of cost savings. If it's working, then why not continue using the way it's working. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Next on my list, I have the Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Go ahead.
Marsi cho, Madam Chair. Just a quick statement. With this COVID pandemic, a lot of our mains that we are going to be reviewing, the complexion is going to completely changed. I think, again, this is going to be no different. I just reviewed. I am probably going to go back and forth a little bit, though I will try not to be too confusing. If you could turn your page to 172, there is a line item here for Rockhill Apartments. My question here: we are very sad of what happened here, by the way, with Rockhill. It was a good program. My constituents used that building, and it's no longer here. My question to the Minister for this contribution, this line item: this $266,000 that is mentioned here, is that still somehow funnelled to the YWCA in another line item? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Minister.
Madam Chair, no, it is not.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for that response. These allocated funds are completely discontinued, and so I guess for lack of a better word then, why do we seize out this money from here on in? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Minister.
Due to the fire in October 2018, there was no budget in this budget. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Thank you. I'm going back to page 171 now, Madam Chair. There is a line item for contract services. Back from the 2018-2019 actuals, it was at $8.4 million, approximately. It spiked up to over almost $25 million. Now, we are back down to $22 million. Can the Minister just explain a little bit how that came about and the reasons why we are at the number we are at today? Marsi.
Thank you, Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Minister.
Madam Chair, I am going to look to Ms. Mathison to give us the breakdown. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Director of finance.
Sure. Thank you, Madam Chair. The increase from 2018-2019 to 2019-2020 was related to the service payments for the new Stanton Hospital. That was $18 million. In 2019-2020, there were some one-time costs as Stanton was settling, that are now out of the budget for 2020-2021. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Director of Finance. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Thank you, Madam Chair, another sticky cost at the hospital that we've incurred. My other quick question here was with travel. The complexion of all this is going to change. We're not going to be travelling a whole lot for the next while. If there is any surplus for this year, would that just go back into the consolidated revenue fund? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Minister.
Madam Chair. The travel amount, we are all still doing patient travel. We still have patients who are receiving care here in the Northwest Territories as well as outside the Territories, for appointments like cancer appointments. We still will incur travel, but, if we don't use up the budget, yes, it will go back in. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Thank you for that answer. I imagine, for the patient stuff, that budget will be a lot higher. Just to be clear, this travel budget here is for staff for HSS travel? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Minister.
Yes. Sorry, I apologize for that. Yes, it is the staff travel, to be able to go into the communities to perform health services. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Thank you for that response. Something else that I want to make a quick comment about, about suicide, it is something that has always plagued our people up in the North. For me, personally, I lost two uncles, and it hit the family very hard. I know that we do what we can to put funding in. I just want to know a little bit more about this community-based suicide prevention. It says here on page 172 that it's funding to support suicide prevention projects, groups, workshops, after-school programs, and land-based programs. It says after-school programs. Has there been any work or kind of joint projects with ECE for this program? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The community-based suicide prevention is funding to support community-based suicide prevention projects, including groups, workshops, after-school programs, as well as on-the-land programs. I'm not sure right now if there are activities we do in partnership with Education, Culture and Employment. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for the response. If I could just get the Minister to find out a little bit more, it will be good to know if there is any overlap for this, and I want to make sure that we are spending our money wisely within our departments. Mahsi.
Thank you, Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Minister, can you make that commitment?
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Further questions, Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh?
Thank you, Madam Chair, nothing further.
