Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today’s worries are focused on the Minister’s proposals on supplementary health, but we should not lose focus on the problems that devalue the quality of our current health services.
One such challenge is access to diagnostic services. Long waiting lists for essential testing and treatment is an issue familiar to every Member. Literally hundreds of patients are waiting as much as two years for audiometric testing, colonoscopies, bone density testing and other essential diagnostic services. Patients who get through the diagnostic line-up then join the line to see physicians. Wait times of one and even two years are not uncommon in such disciplines as internal medicine, oncology and orthopaedics. Prompt care in these cases is often critical to ease suffering and halt the advancement of the disease. Lack of specialists means more patient trips to the South, a terribly inefficient use of funds. Or we drop the service, such as access to pain clinics.
For our regional residents, the lack of specialists at Stanton Territorial Hospital means no services for visitors. Patients needing care that can’t wait, such as midwifery services and physiotherapy, are going without.
The inability to recruit and retain professionals is a chronic problem. Many patients simply can’t find a regular family doctor. The Territory has not had a resident psychiatrist for at least three years. Locum placements are an expensive band-aid on the lack of resident physicians. While the Minister proudly announced the launch of the department’s $100,000 recruitment website recently, high turnover and lasting vacancies in critical positions persist.
Despite the government’s professed commitment to the preventive approach, limits to approve procedures have often prevented my constituents from getting treatments that will save the system thousands of dollars in the long run. The limp answer I get in these cases is it’s not on the list; of course, with unexplained exceptions.
Patients who do get care and are paying their own medication costs don’t get their money back on legitimate claims. On what should be a routine matter with the Inuvik office, one Weledeh senior is now on her fourth go-around with the same recurring months-long-no-refund problem corrected only through repeated recourse to the Minister of Health herself. No doubt we can take a lesson on the future of co-payments from this case.
I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted
Health services are at the top of every Canadian’s list of priorities and Northerners are no different. Our residents receive many excellent services from our dedicated and often over-tasked health care professionals. My constituents still speak highly about the treatment they receive for emergency and catastrophic health issues. It is our preventative and diagnostic programs and access to specialists that are failing. Let’s see some real progress on these very real issues.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
