Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This government provides a very critical service to residents of the Northwest Territories and that service is medical travel. In my short time being an MLA and listening to a lot of the concerns that residents of the Northwest Territories have, especially in my region of the Inuvik region and constituents of mine that travel to either Edmonton or to Yellowknife, there are still concerns with this medical travel. I wanted to bring the point to order today on what is all provided in this medical travel. One of the things that were brought to my attention is return airfare, but also things such as accommodation and, specifically, ground transportation.
I am bringing this up today, because on Saturday in Inuvik, we had, I believe, about six medical clients who returned back to Inuvik after going out for some treatment or going out for medical appointments and who got stranded at the airport. Obviously, it is on the weekend, so the government only usually runs from Monday to Friday, government workers, but this does bring to attention that when we do send patients and clients out for medical service and appointments that there has to be somebody there coordinating to ensure that this individual gets back to their point of origin in a safe manner.
In one case I heard that one of the clients that did return on Saturday, who was also an income assistance client, was even thinking of walking into the community of Inuvik. In this temperature, about 11 kilometres, that’s uncalled for.
Later on today I will have questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services on what actions are going to be taken to rectify the situation and also deal with some of these matters at hand such as escorts as well as people who travel to Yellowknife and need that transportation to get either to the boarding homes or to their appointments. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.
