Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. Again and again I hear from constituents that don’t know that they are not covered for medical travel expenses by NWT Health Care when that travel originates outside of the Northwest Territories. I want to ask the Minister what measures our government has undertaken, or if they feel any obligation to make sure that people are aware of this or are reminded of this. What responsibility do we have as a government to make people aware of this?
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Although the government or Department of Health and Social Services does not have an obligation to advise people on their travels to get medical insurance, I think it’s a good idea. I know that travel agents, when you’re going by plane, advise you to get medical insurance, but people who drive out don’t usually bother getting medical insurance, although it’s a good idea. I think the premiums are very reasonable and it’s something that if you do, as the Member indicated, have an accident while you’re down south, medical bills can be astronomical. Even getting to and back from the hospitals down south can be a big cost.
No one thinks about these things until it happens to them and then it’s too late. I’ve had two really serious incidents of people requiring medical travel for accidents and issues that took place outside of the Northwest Territories, in Alberta actually, and it cost a lot of money.
I know the Minister is saying that we don’t have an obligation to tell people, but I’m wondering if it would be worthwhile to have this information posted somewhere. Like when we issue health care cards, would it be worthwhile to have one line on the health care card that says this health care card will entitle the cardholder to medical services within the Northwest Territories and medical services in Canada at other health service providers, but have a line on it that says this does not include medical travel that originates outside the Northwest Territories. Would that be one way of conveying it? Would a public announcement? We put public announcements on the green screen for all kinds of things. Would something like that go some ways?
I’ve just been amazed at how many times this has happened to constituents of mine and I’ve spoken about this in the House many times before, but it’s still not something that comes into people’s consciousness when they’re about to travel.
I definitely think it’s well worth advertising this. I think that it is something that I could advise the department to start working with the authorities to get the word out to people who are going to travel outside our jurisdiction, to ensure that they are carrying medical travel insurance. I think it would be well worth doing that, even if it only prevents one person from having to pay huge medical bills as a result of an accident or something like that.
Because of this one particular incident that happened to a constituent of mine, I recently went on the RBC website and clicked on travel insurance and, actually, for my husband and myself for $75 per year you can buy medical travel for multiple trips. They even send you a little card that you can have plasticized so you can carry that in your wallet. It is as you said, Mr. Minister, extremely inexpensive.
I’m wondering, most of our constituents visit a clinic or a health centre or a health authority or a hospital or wherever they receive their medical services. Most of them would attend there at some point during the year. Do we have a poster that conveys this information that we could post in a public place, such as our health care facilities? Do we have one now, and if we don’t, could we get one that warns people of this cost to avoid?
We may have that type of poster in the health authorities. I’m not aware of that, but if we don’t, we should. I think that after today I will advise the deputy minister to contact the health authorities to ensure that these posters are in all of our health centres across the North, advising people that it would be a good idea to have medical travel insurance.
I didn’t know you could buy sort of like an annual medical travel insurance. That would be even better. It’s usually per trip, but if you can buy something on an annual basis, much better.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I was surprised to find out that you could buy it for multiple trips over the course of a year and how cheap it was; $75 for myself. I’m over 50, but it was $75. But there are a number of sources for this, so that’s something else I’d ask the Minister if he could also put together, because people may not know where to go to look on line. But there are several sources, and I would like to include that in the public information we make available to Northerners so they know where they can easily access this coverage.
I will commit to providing the sources on advising people to get medical travel insurance. I will also commit to putting on the posters where they can get the medical travel insurance from.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
