Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I just want to follow up on my Member’s statement wherein I spoke about the Medical Travel Policy and some of the issues around non-medical escorts. I’d just like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services, maybe she can remind the public some of the details around the Medical Travel Policy and non-medical escorts, because that’s where I seem to be having the issues. Just as a starter, Mr. Speaker, perhaps she can detail some of the Medical Travel Policy guidelines. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, our Medical Travel Policy allows for our residents to be provided with one escort. Sometimes it’s because the patient needs physical support or mental support or language support. So that is the policy we have. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
With regard to the non-medical escorts, who makes the actual call to have the non-medical escorts accompany… In the two cases that I spoke about in my Member’s statement, there were spouses there, Mr. Speaker. So who would actually authorize or designate these non-medical escorts to travel along with the spouse in the medevac plane and/or immediately soon thereafter? Thank you.
Generally speaking, it would be between the patient or the patient’s immediate family and the health care professional on the ground. They would talk about the need for a person to be medevaced, whether it’s Yellowknife to any other places, for what reason and that there would be all the people involved working together.
The situation that the Member described in his Member’s statement, I don’t want to get into the details of it, and I do not know the details other than what he said. But I would like to say that in certain circumstances, the medical personnel on a medical flight may say either they don’t have room for any other person than the patient or it could be a medical situation where any other non-medical person could interfere with the treatment that the patient has to receive. I’d be happy to follow up with the Member on details if he wishes to share that privately. Thank you.
But still, like even if there’s no room on the medevac, you can still designate a non-medical escort. What that designation does there, Mr. Speaker, is it authorizes expenses to be covered for the spouse. Because in these two cases they travelled after their spouses. Their first thought, of course, is the care and concern and the health of their spouse, and the second one is now they’ve got all these out-of-pocket expenses, which they now have to worry about. My issue is that the spouses were not designated as non-medical escorts right off the start there, Mr. Speaker. I am not too sure why this is. The injured spouses were incapacitated. They didn’t understand forms. They were heavily medicated. In fact, the doctors were wondering where the spouses were. My issue is that this is becoming more and more of a trend, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask the Minister to see if she can make an inquiry about it, or was there a policy change that we are trying to save money by not sending non-medical escorts, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, there have not been any changes to the Medical Travel Policy. The policy is that we do provide an escort for eligible patients. In normal circumstances, the health care professional would consult with the family to see who is the best person to go. Going by the description of the situation, it might have been a situation where the medical staff had to respond right away to send this person and that is probably why that is how that person was designated. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. Final supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I chose to raise this issue because it is, like I said, becoming two incidents within the last three months. It is quite disturbing to the family. Now they had to recover costs and worry about that, but initially I still do not understand. The family still does not understand why the spouse who was injured or very sick was not assigned or designated an eligible spouse. That is the issue I would like to raise with the Minister. I would like her to check into it. Maybe there is an internal memorandum that has to go around and say, look, are we applying the policy correctly in these cases. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, yes, I would be happy to commit to follow up on this and work with the Deh Cho Health and Social Services Authority to see what happened in those two cases. I am sure that they have lots of information to help us with that, and if there are any clarifications or enforcement needed, I would also present that to them. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.
