Thank you, Mr. Speaker. During the last sitting of the Legislature, I did a Member’s statement on health care card renewal. Many weeks have gone by, and I have to tell you that this has turned into an almost fulltime job for us in our constituency offices to deal with the myriad of people who cannot seemingly get a quick response to getting their health care cards renewed. I’ve checked with some of my other colleagues and Hay River is not alone. At first I wondered if it was a conspiracy.
It gives me no pleasure to stand up here and complain, as you know. We must always express all the things we’re thankful for. I am thankful for our health care system. I am thankful for those cards we have. I am thankful that we can hand them to any place in Canada and they will take care of us. I am thankful that we pay no premium, but you would think that issuing new health care cards on a new program that coincides with people’s birthdates would not have been this difficult.
Let me give you a few examples. I had a constituent that showed up for a medical procedure in Yellowknife three days before her birthday when her card expired, only to be told by the health care professional that she, in fact, had to pay for the service and then she would get reimbursed later. Her health care hadn’t even expired yet and they were telling her this. Where is the communication with the people on the front line that are telling health care professionals what to say? Somebody’s got to be in charge of this.
I had a senior constituent in the south who had a $1,500 bill and was told just pay it and you’ll get reimbursed. Well, I have a news flash: Most people don’t have $1,500 sitting in their back account to pay for a health bill when they’re not expecting it. Most people don’t have that. A lot of people don’t have that kind of money, and health care procedures can be extremely expensive. Now, through a lot of phone calls and a lot of wrangling and stuff being faxed and phone calls back and forth, that situation was resolved, but that is a real life example.
I had a husband and wife in Hay River that both sent their applications out for renewal at the same time. The husband got his card back; the wife didn’t.
We have pharmacists in Hay River that are actually bankrolling, are carrying the costs of medication for people whose health care cards have not come in and, out of the goodness of their heart, are financing the pharmaceutical for the client. That’s not their job. We should not be asking them to do that.
I’ve heard rumors that maybe they lost some of the data in Inuvik. I don’t know about that, but I did make the same statement several weeks ago.
I will have questions again today to the Minister of Health and Social Services on the process for health care card renewal. Thank you.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier this year, along with my colleague, we had concerns about the health care card renewal system and the way the process is going. We continue to get these concerns from constituents, and we’ve also heard from our colleagues throughout the Northwest Territories that this continues to be an issue.
We are getting examples of people that are asked to apply three months before the expiry of their birthdate, and those cards are expiring without getting renewals or even notification that they’ve been renewed and updated. The department, when we’ve asked them about this, have given us several different examples or excuses and also have indicated that, well, worst-case scenario, have them pay for it and we can pay them back later.
I don’t know how we can ask that from our residents when they don’t have the confidence in us renewing their health care cards, never mind us paying them back thousands of dollars.
I’m not here to complain about the staff or take any shots at the staff that are implementing this health care. My concerns are how it was implemented. Residents are getting applications mailed back to them several times. These applications are missing a certain piece of information and instead of phoning them and getting back to them right away, it’s mailed back to them, asking for them to give the information and then send it back through the mail system. Very slow. No wonder we’re not getting them approved in time.
Also, residents are calling the 1-800 number and the mailboxes are full. Obviously, we don’t have enough manpower on this issue.
I would also like to take the time to thank the medical clinics, the health centres, the pharmacies that have been helping our residents to fill out these applications and get things done. We’re not halfway done through the year and this process still hasn’t been solved. I think we need to put more resources to a solution to this, and if we need to put more resources to it, I would recommend we put some of it into an insurance type of program for the South Slave, and obviously, I would be supportive of it being in Hay River.
I will have questions for the Minister of Health later on today.
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
