Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have some questions today for the Minister of Health and Social Services with regard to the Territorial Admissions Committee. This committee was established about a year or so ago. From a press release last September, it states: “A new Territorial Admissions Committee (TAC) has been established to streamline the application process for long-term care into the NWT’s 10 long-term care facilities.” So the committee has been in place for a year or more and I would like to ask the Minister at this point how successful this program has been and how many people have been placed. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t have a number on me as to how many people were processed through that, but I can tell the Member that anybody in the Territories who is being considered for a placement into a long-term care would have had to have gone through TAC. So I will get back to the Member on the exact number. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister for that commitment. I do have some concerns about the operation of the TAC, particularly around travel. There are a number of our residents who are either in their home community or perhaps who have been placed in a facility outside of the NWT. I’ve read the policy that’s on the department’s website. I don’t see anything in there about travel and how people are moved from one place to another. So I’d like to ask the Minister, since the policy doesn’t help me out here, do we repatriate residents who have been placed in a facility outside of the NWT? Do we repatriate them into the NWT, assuming, of course, that our facilities have space? Thank you.
Yes, we do, especially with the opening of the Territorial Dementia Centre and the Hay River Assisted Living Facility. We did review clients outside of the jurisdiction, our clients in other jurisdictions, to see if they can be moved.
Territorial Admissions Committee are administrators who review the files to see where our clients should be best placed within the Territory. Questions about how do they get paid to be moved would be on a case-by-case basis. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister. It’s my understanding that when residents are moved from an outside facility back into the Territory’s, that the department will cover their costs. If we, for instance, move somebody from a small community outside of Yellowknife to, say, the Territorial Dementia Centre to Aven Cottage because they happen to have dementia or Alzheimer’s, it’s my understanding that that travel is not paid for by the Department of Health and Social Services. So I’d like to ask the Minister why we would cover costs to bring somebody from outside the NWT in, but yet we won’t cover the costs to bring somebody from within the NWT to a facility that they need. Thank you.
That would not be based on the regions or the facilities. It wouldn’t be because they’re being moved from out of Territories or something like that. I would think that’s a question of insured services versus uninsured services, something that we hear all the time. Hospital-to-hospital transportation, that would be considered insured services and that’s covered under Medicare, medical travel. Long-term care is not considered insured services, so for some residents those are not covered. How the authorities deal with that is often they try to look to see if they need to go anywhere for medical travel, they will try to combine them. Authorities work hard to observe the cost as much as possible, but transfer from a long-term care to long-term care is not considered an insured service. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. Final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m a little confused by that answer. If we cover travel costs to bring somebody from outside the NWT to a facility within, then I don’t understand why we wouldn’t cover them to move from within the NWT to another facility.
I’d like to ask the Minister a question as well. It’s my understanding -- and this is anecdotal evidence, I don’t have much except for what constituents have told me -- that we will cover costs for family members to visit patients who are in a long-term care facility outside the NWT, but we will not do the same for family members visiting patients within the NWT from an outside community. So can I get an answer to why there is that discrepancy? Thank you.
I would appreciate getting more information from the Member, perhaps, on the specific situation. It’s case by case and it’s depending on the person and what facility they are in. We pay for medical escorts, but we do not have a budget to pay for somebody to visit anybody in long-term care at any time. It’s a question that we get asked all the time, so I would need what facility they are in and what condition and under what circumstances they were asked to have support. If they’re indigent, if they’re on income security, sometimes we’ve covered those. Sometimes they’re covered under employer’s benefits. There are so many different varieties, so I’d appreciate getting more information from the Member. Thank you.
