Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wonder how many people in our territory know that they have to renew their health care card. I just asked that because that is the new system that has been adopted by our Health department. It is now up to everyone to check the expiry date on their health care card and apply for a new one a few months in advance. The form is available on the Health and Social Services website, and at nursing stations and medical clinics.
I know there has been some advertising about this, and postcards to remind people to renew are being sent out, but old habits die hard. No doubt there will be people who do not get the message.
It used to be the health care cards were seldom replaced and when they were, the new one would simply arrive in the mail. Many of our residents probably still think that that’s how it works. Of course, what I do not want to see happen is any of our residents running into problems with their health care coverage – especially if they happen to travel outside the Northwest Territories – expiring. Sometimes we are asked to pay a bill and then we have to seek reimbursement after we get home.
I know that many people have applied for new cards but have not received them yet. There may be a backlog in Inuvik; I’m not sure. But, obviously, we need to provide health care to those people when it is required, so it’s important that there be a grace period. My understanding is that health care providers are supposed to confirm the patient’s enrolment number. It might be a good idea to have an automatic grace period of some length and then handle problems on a case-by-case basis.
I am glad that the Health department is keeping health care cards up to date. I’m sure that one good side effect will be that few people who have left the NWT will still have valid cards. I am always amazed by how many times I am approached by people in the public who want to convince me of an urban myth that there are more health care cards than there are people in the Northwest Territories. We have gone over this many, many times and I’ve assured people this is not the case, but it is still out there in the public that we have people who have left the Northwest Territories still carrying around NWT health care cards. This new system will, hopefully, help to alleviate that.
But change is always hard and I’m sure there will be little glitches before the population is used to renewing their health care cards, and I want to encourage the Health Minister to stay with the information campaign for a while and then reinforce it from time to time.
Later today I will have questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services on this new health care card renewal process.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
