Thank you. No, it's not.
Okay, thank you. I'll go to the Member from Range Lake.
Thank you. Where can I find that? Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the department is incurring that cost. Thank you.
Okay, thank you. I'll go to the Member from Range Lake.
And where are they incurring it? If we passed that section, my apologies. I'm just wondering, like, where we can see that represented in these estimates. Thank you.
I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you. I will have the ADM answer that exact question.
Thank you. I'll go to the ADM.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So the section for that would be admin and support services is where we would incur that expense. Because this budget was developed prior to the bringing on of the public administrator, that budget item is not actually reflected in here. So thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. Next on my list I have is the Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to follow up on the question I was starting to ask about detox.
So can the Minister clarify whether the funding that we have for detox, is it all federally funded, or do we put some of our own money into detox services? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, that's all bilateral funding that we received.
Okay, thank you. I'll go to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And so how many detox beds are we funded by the feds to offer, or is it -- have we committed to a certain number of beds or a certain amount of services; what exactly have we committed to with that federal funding? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I -- to get into the detail, the way that funding goes for -- so detox would be in hospital and those would be funded positions that would be added -- allocated to -- and I believe it is the -- like, Stanton, and I think in Beaufort Delta -- or Hay River, yes.
Okay, thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. How many operational detox beds do we have -- well, how many detox beds do we have operational at the moment? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the way that this works is that it's at per needs. So if a person is requiring it, now we have extra staff that we can use to dedicate that person to being able to provide detox. And so normally up until now, all of our hospitals did do this in some shape or form. They -- you know, when people were coming in, they were detoxing them. Sometimes there would be admissions when people were needing detox before going to the hospital. But these would never have been funded. So they were always just on top of being an admission into the hospital. And now we have designated funding so that way -- so when people -- when we talk about beds, we're talking about the number of nurses being able to provide that one-on-one care that might need for those residents. And I know over the three-year period, the agreement has 24 FTEs to be added for this initiative. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Okay, thank you for that clarification. And so is it understood, then, that anyone going to the Stanton Hospital or the Inuvik Hospital that requires detox that it will be available to them if they go in, or have we had examples of where there's more demand than we can actually meet with the current level of staffing and funding that we have? Thank you, Mr. Chair. For detox specifically.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, and I appreciate the questions from the Member. And I think it is -- it is one of the areas where it's difficult because I think on any given day, you know, if somebody is choosing to want to withdraw, manage, and detox from -- so normally, you'd be -- you know, you may be working with a physician, may be working within -- with counsellors, getting ready for, going to treatment, so a lot of times these may -- they may be, you know, scheduled. It's not necessarily that, you know, people will just show up to emerge and want detox. So it is being able to provide this service when it's part of their plan of care, and I think it's more of a coordinated care. But, again, like I mentioned, it is dedicated funding so that when the time has come, we are able to support that within our facilities. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And can the Minister clarify, for those with alcohol dependency, who may be in the hospital for other reasons, who are not ready or wanting to detox -- I think we had in the past, but do we still currently offer some kind of managed alcohol program to inpatients in the hospital who need, you know, to avoid, you know, withdrawal systems that could be even more harmful to their health? Do we have a managed alcohol program for those patients who are not in a position to detox? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, when somebody is admitted and they're known to, you know, if they're -- say, if they're admitted for something else, like pneumonia and all that, their history is taken into account and so they would manage their -- them within their plan of care during their admission and however that would be -- you know, whether it is through medication management, it would be part of their admission process. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go back to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Okay, so just to be clear, can the Minister confirm that we are not forcing people to detox in the hospital if they're not ready or wanting to just to be a patient in the hospital? There's no need for that because we have other ways that we can manage their alcohol dependency within the hospital; can the Minister confirm that's where we're at? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, you know, this -- you know, I think the thing is that we're getting way, way down into the details of how people are admitted. And physicians, you know, when they have somebody coming into the hospital being in admission, they will manage them according to their plan of care to their -- whatever their issue or condition is. Where alcohol management is more where we support is at the community level through -- like, only one of our programs. But I know that taking that into account that, you know, we are looking at other ways that we ensure that through our systems, you know -- and the Member, I think, has also brought it up, if not this Member, other Members, you know, when we have patients that are struggling with addictions and they are in one of our -- like, in our managed alcohol program and if they have to travel for certain things, we have recognized that we need to do more work on supporting those individuals as outpatient but not necessarily, you know, the inpatient management of alcohol withdrawal during -- you know, the priority would be to -- if they were admitted, would be to their condition that they're being admitted for. And then secondary they would be making sure that they are managing those symptoms of their -- if they are withdrawing. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll have to follow up with the Minister later to dig into that. And just finally, switching to a different topic.
So it was mentioned a few minutes ago that some of the health -- or NTHSSA's deficit has now been allocated to some of the items on this list to help relieve some of the deficit from the health authority. How is it decided what costs end up under the health authority's budget versus what ends up under this budget; can they just transfer all their deficit to this budget and then be done with it? We solved our deficit. Like, or what are the criteria that say, no, that has to go into the health authority's budget or that has to go under HSS's budget? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm not sure if I understand the question. I think what -- if you're referring to that we are dealing with deficits because we were reallocating funding this year to put towards the deficit, so if you -- for example, there was -- when we renegotiated the last NIHB agreement, the money that we were allocating to NIHB from GNWT funds, we were able to put that towards some of the deficit because the special allotment through NIHB, the third party agreement, paid for the thing that it's been -- that we've been paying for for years. And so we were able to negotiate NIHB to pay for NIHB where we -- so we were able to keep that funding for -- and reallocate it to things that were historically ongoing drivers of the deficit. So things that continue to drive the deficit up that we were able to reallocate that funding to that so that it would bring our deficit down. Thank you.
Okay, thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair. I think I understand if the Minister is saying that if we're getting, like, a new federal funding source, then we can help use that to bring down the deficit, and then the numbers are going to show up in these things. But I guess what I would be afraid of is that if it's still the GNWT footing the bill but we're just shifting sort of the blame, so to speak, it used to be under the health authority's deficit budget and then they solved their deficit by just putting the money under something the GNWT's responsible for paying -- well, HSS is responsible for paying for directly under their operations budget. But I can understand if it's a matter of we get new funding coming in from the feds, and we're trying to channel that money through. I'll leave that there. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for your patience.
Okay, thank you. Is there any further questions from Members? Seeing none. Thank you.
Please turn to page 205, Health and Social Services, health and social services programs, operations expenditure summary, 2025-2026 Main Estimates, $446,079,000. Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Moving to the long-term and continuing care services beginning on page 210 with information items on page 213. Are there any questions? I'm going to go to the Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm going to ask a high-level question first because it may explain all of the cuts. But I notice there's about a $10 million reduction here; can the Minister explain that. And does that $10 million reduction explain everything that's being cut there similar to some of the items I asked about in the previous item?
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, that is the cost share agreements with the First Nations/Inuit home and community care sunset funding because we were in the same situation, like, with the other agreements. We have a couple agreements that happened partway through this year. So that's not reflected in here so that's why it shows up as a decrease. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate that. So the Minister can confirm that we're not facing any service cuts this year for these items?
Okay, thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
