Thank you. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll ask the deputy minister to answer that.
Deputy minister Cecchetto.
Thank you. Some of those timelines are yet to be determined. However, for example, for the rehab as an example, we are finalizing our standards and then coming from that, we would envision an opportunity to see that available to the public in the format of a dashboard to be determined. So that is the work to come.
Thank you, Member for Frame Lake.
Yeah, thanks for that. Yeah, I would really encourage that because I think if there's I know that there's reporting that goes off to the Canadian Institute of Health Research and some other places. But if there was a centralized web page on DHSS or Northwest Territories Health and Social Services Authority with wait times then people, when they call for a service, they'd at least kind of have some sense as to how long the wait time might be to actually get called in. So I would really encourage that we report that ourselves somewhere on a userfriendly dashboard.
I want to just go back to the sustainability office that the Minister mentioned earlier. Is it fully staffed and what, if any, sort of main areas for costs savings have they identified? Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the office, I believe, is fully staffed or almost fully staffed at this point. And they have they have been looking, as I think I mentioned earlier, at cost containment. And so one thing that they've looked at as an example of that is reciprocal billing. It turns out that we were not issuing all the invoices that we could to other jurisdictions for caring for their residents and so that's something that we have paid more attention to in order to ensure that we're getting all the revenue that is properly owed to us.
Another example is going into product listing agreements with pharmaceutical companies to take advantage of discounts they provide on bulk orders. And that has saved us quite a good sum of money, in the millions.
We've also introduced a biosimilar initiative where we fund preferentially biosimilar or generic drugs rather than brand name drugs if the formulation is exactly the same.
So those are some of the things that we've tried to do the cost containment piece of this work. But this is longterm work. We won't be on top of all the ways that we can save money even in the next fiscal year. And this is going to blend together with the government renewal initiative which, you know, we've now done an inventory of all of our programs for. And so I can see that in the next year we're going to be paying more attention to that and what value for money we get for our different programs. So there are initiatives underway that acknowledge the situation that we're in and remedies to it. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.
Yeah. No, thanks, Madam Chair. And thanks for that explanation. Yeah, and I don't doubt that these people are not at I think they're very hard at work; that's great. But is there anywhere their work is kind of summarized or reported on, even at a high level, perhaps once a year? Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister of Health and Social Services.
We provide the financial management board with semiannual reports about the work of the sustainability office, and we are available to come and brief committee confidentially on that work on request.
Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.
Yeah. No, thanks, Madam Chair. The reports to FMB, and, you know, probably end up being on a confidential briefing to Regular MLAs are okay. But I guess I'm trying to find a way for the good work that these folks are doing to be explained publicly. Is that something that the department will look at? Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I don't think the department has contemplated that. I haven't ever heard a request for that before now. People do realize that the system is running a deficit, but I don't think they relate that to the services that are delivered. And so it seems to be not as interesting to the public as it is to us sitting in the House.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Frame Lake.
Okay. Well, look, I don't want to prolong this. Thanks, Madam Chair. I think there's actually a good number of people in the public that want to know how we can find efficiencies and ways of improving our expenditures and tracking and so on of health care costs. So I'll just leave that with the Minister and the department. I think they need to find a way to explain some of the good work that they are doing. Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Health and Social Services, administrative and support services. Member for Tu NedheWiilideh.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to come back to the deficit that was mentioned by my colleagues earlier. Going forward, though, this next fiscal year we're going to be you said the 189. But overall, I just want to know, like how do we what are your management plans to deal with this deficit, I guess, going forward? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, what we've been what we did was create the health system sustainability office and the plan that goes with it, and their task is to find ways in which we can contain or reduce costs for the services that we provide to the population. And that has produced some initial results. We are not looking at how we can pay this deficit back. That is not part of this budget, and it's hard to imagine when it will be. What we're trying to do is to ensure that the deficit slows in its growth so that the overall deficit doesn't get any worse. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Tu NedheWiilideh.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Maybe if I just had another question. Can the Minister explain to me about the on page 190, in terms of chargebacks. Can you just maybe just touch a little bit on that and so I understand it. Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you. The chargebacks on that page relate to the money that we pay to the TSC for the support they give us for our various electronic and health information systems.
Thank you. Member for Tu NedheWiilideh.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you, Minister, for your answer. I'm just thinking about the deficit again, but I'm just thinking the budget overall is you know, we got a pretty big budget here of $610 million plus. I'm just thinking about the three P initiatives in terms of commitments. Going forward, I know that we're building that new hospital and then the renovation of the old hospital, etcetera. I just want to know, I guess overall, is that going to the binding of this budget the government's those projects long term, what are the I don't know if you could speak to it or not but I just want to know what the longterm payback is on that on those three projects. Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, those are capital projects which are in the capital budget that this year will be presented at the end of August. And so this budget doesn't contain capital projects. It contains the operations and maintenance of both the old hospital and the new hospital. So those capital costs are not in here.
Thank you. Member for Tu NedheWiilideh.
Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you, Minister. My next question will be is that in regards to contract services for $844,000, can you maybe just elaborate a little bit on that, on the breakdown of that because I don't see it in here. Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to have the director of finance answer that question, please.
Thank you. Go ahead, Ms. Johnson.
The $844,000 is primarily with a few contractors under our administration or information services, mail chargebacks, Xerox under finance, and some administrative contracts such as French language services, College of Physicians and Surgeons, and the Alberta // Renal. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Tu NedheWiilideh.
Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. And those are the questions I have for now. Thank you.
Thank you. Health and Social Services, administrative and support services. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to confirm there, I guess on page 191, is that the health and social services authorities funding that 33,275, is that related to the Hay River Health and Social Services Authority?
Thank you. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you. I'm not sure if it relates directly to that. We do have a section at the end well, some of it relates to directly to that. $3,361 relates to the language support for Hay River Health and Social Services. There is a section of the budget at the end called funding allocated to health authorities in which Health and Social Services Hay River Health and Social Services has its own page and some of the spending is well, all of the spending is detailed there. This is specifically page 213. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Earlier today the Minister mentioned that we have a physician shortage of approximately 40 percent 46 percent. Is that reflected in the budget, or do we carry that number, I guess, for a full complement of physicians, or do we budget based on that we're always going to be, you know, short physicians, because it seems like it could be a substantial number. Thank you.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, we budget for the full complement of doctors because if we are not spending them on resident doctors then we're spending them on locums, or we're spending it the money on overtime for resident doctors or callbacks and those kind of employment situations. So not having doctors doesn't save us money. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess that was kind of my next question I guess was, you know, if we're not hiring doctors, are we saving money or is it an additional cost because we don't have doctors due to possibly, you know, sending people south or some other forms of healthcare services? Thank you.
Thank you, Member. I think most of those questions, they would be related in the operations expenditures because those go to health authorities. But just so that we're talking about it, this is the department. Thank you. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Okay, I'm trying to grab the question. So where we don't have resident doctors to provide specialized services, people are sent south for treatment. So most recently you would have heard about the rheumatology program. There was a regular visitor rheumatologist who became unavailable. And the result of that is we were unable to hire another resident or longterm rheumatologist and so people are going south to receive treatment. We decided that that provided the best continuity of care. So I think that more than anything, the situation with rheumatology points to how fragile our health system is, that it's not very deep, the bench isn't very deep. Once we have a couple of midwives leave or a rheumatologist leave, then we are very shortstaffed and looking to Alberta to help us provide the services residents need. Thank you.
