Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yesterday I spoke about the challenges of medical travel, and I have some follow-up questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services. Yesterday, the Minister said that the department does not track flight cancellations, rescheduling, rerouting flights as part of the medical travel for people who are going out for appointments and that. Will the Minister direct his staff to start doing this? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At a territorial-global level, no, I will not. We have a lot of people doing a lot of work, and I feel like this would be something that would take up time. However, when issues are raised, as they have been in the Deh Cho, yes, absolutely, we will contact the provider to try to figure out what is happening. We want to make sure that we are providing quality services to our residents. Having said that, Mr. Speaker, we have relationships with airlines. We have standing offer agreements. They have scheduled flights. We book based on scheduled flights in good faith, expecting that the airlines will live up to their obligations. There are many things that would sort of interfere with that: weather, mechanical, flights, those types of things. When that happens, we work with our patients to rebook them as quickly as we can to get them the appointments they need.
I thank the Minister for the answer. I heard that yesterday. It is about patients. It is about their care. That is my concern, is that I understand we rebook, we reschedule, but the thing is that I have people who go out for appointments who miss. It could be a week, a month, it could be two months, three months down the road, and this is a huge concern for these people. They brought this concern to me, and I appreciate the Minister is going to look at it for the Nahendeh, but can the Minister tell us if he has contacted the Department of Infrastructure, who is responsible for providing this contract, to see if they can look into this concern, as well?
Once again, the Department of Health and Social Services' responsibility is to provide care to residents of the Northwest Territories. Medical travel is an incredibly important program, and we rely in good faith on airlines who have scheduled flights. We have to make choices about when to book people and how to move people into their appointments as quickly and appropriately as possible. If appointments are cancelled, we take immediate action to rebook and to arrange flights accordingly. If there is urgency, there will not be a three-month delay; we will find ways to make it happen as quickly as possible. If there is less urgency, we will work with the patient to make sure they get the service in a timely way. I hear the Member. There is no question that, you know, there have been some impacts on residents of the riding due to a number of things that the airline has experienced over the past year, but, frankly, I am not sure what to say. We do not control the airlines. We are not an airline provider. Can the Member tell me what he thinks we need to do?
I appreciate the Minister actually asking me a question. That is kind of a new role for me today, so I appreciate that. So I guess the thing is that I would actually reach out to the contractor to see how they can alleviate these concerns and not put our patients out and put them into disadvantage. Because I know in my riding, in Fort Simpson, the airline contracted who has the bulk of this, is changing their flights. It is a regular scheduled flight, but it seems that sometimes we have got to go from Yellowknife to Hay River to Fort Simpson. Sometimes we get the unique flight of going from Edmonton to Fort Simpson to Inuvik to Yellowknife. So I guess will the Minister reach out to the contractor to see what they can try to come up with to alleviate this situation?
We have already done that. I have already said that. We reached out to the airline based on the fact that the Member had brought this to our attention. We were told by the airline that it has been a very difficult winter. There have been a lot of weather issues. They have had a couple of mechanical issues. They need to make sure that their planes are flying safely. If there are changes in one community, it may affect their ability to get to the communities that are originally scheduled, so they change their structures accordingly. We have registered our concern. They are aware, but they have to run a business, and they have indicated to us that they have set scheduled flights, they try to maintain them, sometimes they have to change. When they do change, we work with other airlines if necessary, other providers, and we try our best to get our patients to their appointments as quickly as possible. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess this is just going to go around and around in circles here, but, again, my constituents are not getting a fair treatment. We are seeing this, and it is consistent, so maybe the airlines are out on mechanical and they are having that problem. So, if this service continues, will the department look at alternate solutions to provide these services, i.e. local airlines or another airline company? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
We have a standing agreement with an airline to be the first airline that we go to in cases of medical travel. That airline has provided good services. We have a really good relationship with them where we get discounted rates and, if flights are cancelled at the last minute, we don't hit a financial penalty on that.
Recognizing that, we know that it doesn't always work, and we have the freedom to go to other airlines, but our priority is to go to the airline of our standing offer agreement. We do use other airlines from time to time if we see these cancellations occurring, because our priorities are to get the patients to their appointments as quickly as possible. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
