Lesa Semmler

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, my deputy minister JoAnne Cecchetto. And ADM of finance, policy and planning, Jeannie Mathison. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, one of the things that within the Northwest Territories, there are many programs that we provide at no cost and we have been providing those at no cost to residents of the Northwest Territories who hold a valid NWT health care card. Many of those services, when you look across the jurisdictional scan in Canada, those are a fee for service like throughout Canada. And so within extended health benefits, one of the areas in that is they're you know, what we're focusing on right now is trying to make a program that's equitable to the Northwest Territories...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess where I'm at is is that if somebody was to yeah, and I hear what the Member's concern is. And if somebody was to be gone out on medical and they passed away then, of course, we would cover that. If there's a family member, you know, we have like I said, there's support. There's financial support. There's federal support for families who you know, that have lost somebody. And so we do have some, you know, areas where we do support families with some of those costs. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. You know, I hear where the Member's coming from and I understand that there's many the clients that we do have in residential care facilities are very complex and, you know, however, we all wish that we would be able to have all the service to support people. And, you know, my community is kind of like your community, it doesn't have all of the specialized services there. And we also don't have the staff that will help to be able to take care of a number of the needs of the people and to support the family on top of that. So right now what we do is we look at each...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And yes, I we can include that kind of a review as part of our you know, with the support. And I hear you that there are a lot of times when seniors sometimes they struggle, they need assistance to travel for an appointment and they can't find a nonmedical escort to go with them, even though they're approved. And sometimes they just need that little bit of extra support. And so those are the types of things that we want to take a look at and how we can streamline and, you know, and in those cases be able to look at how we are supporting people in our boarding homes and...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, that increase was the difference was that there was the supplementary funding because of the increased costs that the out of territory treatment facilities with the new agreements, and it also was the increased cost to the travel that it was increased numbers that we were getting for people that were going out for treatment. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is why we're looking at the policy review. You know, and even the information that I explained to the Member in the House, you know, people leaving the Northwest Territories, I myself, you know, when I first travelled, you know, that's not something that we normally do because we usually jump in our vehicle and we head down to Whitehorse from the Beaufort Delta. We don't think about having to access what happens if we get hurt, you know, or what happens if we're in an accident. And so, you know, that's another that's part of this is going to be making sure that...

If there's communities that are interested in, you know, accessing the dollars to provide programming in their communities, what I can do is I know that I I don't have it on hand, but what I can do to the Members is provide the information to the funds that we do have available and where they can who they have to contact to access those funds and then they can you know, they can, you know, assist the Indigenous government on their proposals on what they want to do. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we have provided numbers. You know, the estimate is what is in the budget, and we've said that it's 1.3 like, and it's in the letter that I sent today as well, that the summary of the expected increased costs is $2.5 million, less the estimated copayments by residents of $1.2 million. That leaves a shortfall of $1.3 million. So thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we do in the previous section, we have home and community care as part of our that is where we would have supports for families. And I know that in a perfect world, we would have 24hour care in all our communities to be able to provide home support work, home care. And that's not the reality. We're slowly implementing it now. Up until a few years ago, it was only Monday to Friday, you know, and very seldom in the evenings. So we know that is something that we've heard loud and clear. And, I mean, myself as an MLA, I also raised those issues. And we're...