Quanani, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I have questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services. Medical travel is an important part of health care in the NWT, especially in Nunakput where all communities are fly-in communities, so accessing services outside the community requires air travel. This is a necessary but significant expense. Could the Minister tell us what the cost of medical travel is for the NWT, and if you're going to look at ways to reduce that cost? Quanani, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Medical Travel Policy is designed to reduce financial impact on residents who are accessing insured health services. Those benefits are in place mostly to help address the geographical realities and needs that we have in the Northwest Territories for people who are accessing these insured services. There is a significant expenditure. The total budget for the medical travel program in 2015-2016 was $36.9 million, with projected expenditures actually over that, of $38.2 million. The total cost, we are able to recover some of those dollars from other revenues, such as including non-insured health benefits for First Nations and Inuit as well as third-party employer and insurance.
Medical travel has been underfunded for many years. The department is working on a medical travel modernization project to help improve program and patient experiences for those who are accessing medical travel. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The Minister mentioned that the department is working to modernize the medical travel program. Could he please tell us more about the project, and what progress has been made?
The medical travel modernization is an ongoing project. The first step in the work was actually revising the Medical Travel Policy, and that was actually revised and came into effect on April 1, 2015. The policy revisions included moving the program administration detail out of the Cabinet-approved policy into a ministerial policy. These are now subject to periodic reviews, and may be updated so that they can continue to meet the needs of the public and the health system.
Under the revised policy, we have also been able to establish an appeals process, which is new. One of the major elements being looked at is improving guidelines for patient escorts, which is one of the issues that I have heard the most about as I have travelled around the Northwest Territories. We're also streamlining business processes to make it more efficient.
Other projects underway as part of medical travel modernization are focused on improving the patient experience. A medical travel handbook is nearly developed, almost ready to go, and will be made available to all individuals who are going on medical travel, and the staff have been working and have taken additional training to become certified service professionals to improve customer service at the front line.
Medical travel escorts is something I hear a lot of concern about from my constituents, especially for elders. Could the Minister explain how decisions are made about escorts and how the process is being improved? Quyanainni, Mr. Speaker.
As I indicated, I've had the opportunity as Minister to travel to all the communities in the Northwest Territories, and when I've been there one of the things that I hear the most about is medical travel and frustrations that exist around medical travel. The policy on escorts actually sets out that the requirement and criteria for an escort to travel with a medical travel client is known as a “non-medical escort,” and they may be approved if: the patient is under the age of 19; the patient is breastfeeding an infant and requires an escort to assist with the baby; the patient has a mental or physical disability and is not able to travel unassisted; the patient requires an escort for interpretation; or if an escort is needed to learn how to care for the patient after they are discharged.
Escorts are not automatically provided for elders unless they meet one of those criteria. There's been a lot of discussion. I've heard a lot of elders actually talking about this, and I've heard some of them say we don't want an escort because we are an elder. I've heard other people say we should have an escort because we're an elder. I've heard individuals say that the escorts should be a family member, somebody known to them. I've heard other people say that we should have established escorts. There's no one simple solution, and we've pulled all this information together through public consultations and others and we are moving forward with an escort policy, which I'll be discussing with Regular Members as we move forward.
One of the first things that we're doing is getting out the handbook so that when individuals are going medical travel they know the information of where they're going, what they need to do, what information they need to bring with them, and what information they'll need to bring back. I'm happy to share the results of medical travel review as we take steps forward with committee and all Members. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
