Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services as well. In my Member’s statement today, I talked about a scenario that could occur where a non-medical escort accompanies a patient to Stanton, or I suppose it could be to Edmonton, and they get there and the programed treatment for the patient changes for some reasons and the person who is the non-medical escort, out of the goodness of their heart, has probably taken time off work and is there doing this as an unpaid service.
When the program changes and the person who is the escort needs to go home, what are their options for that cost being covered? Thank you.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Minister of Health, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When an individual travels as a medical escort with a patient, there’s an expectation that they will stay with that particular person. We do know that we have people going out for really long periods of time and we actually have a policy that says after 21 days escorts can swap out and we cover those costs. However, if an escort wants to leave before the designated swap-out person, they are technically on the hook for recovering the costs.
Now, we do recognize that the situation the Member is describing has happened and can happen. So, we do have an extenuating circumstances policy in place that says if you go and something happens, like the patient’s stay is extended and it adversely affects the escort, we can work with them to make sure that they wouldn’t necessarily have to pay back. But if they choose, and there’s no extenuating circumstances, they’re on the hook. Thank you.
That is good news to hear that under extenuating circumstances the escort could find a way home at the government expense. If an escort is only accompanying a patient for a procedure or a surgery or something that’s only anticipated to be a day or two, they may have agreed to it on those grounds, but if it turns out to be a longer period of time, how would that escort then, without having to pay out of their own pocket, access that return ticket? How would they do it? What’s the process? Who is going to determine what the extenuating circumstances are? How long is that going to take to get approved? Those sorts of things. Thank you.
As in all cases, we would obviously need some confirmation from the medical practitioner that the patient’s reality has changed. So the individual would have to work with the patient to get some recognition from the practitioner which could then be shared with the medical travel staff who can actually facilitate the return ticket or rebooking. How long it takes really depends on their ability to get the information to the medical staff, but we can make those things happen pretty fast. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
How much latitude does the person who works in medical travel who issues travel tickets have and are they aware of the discretion they have? In a real life case that I know of, the escort was told, I’m sorry, if you’re travelling home without the patient, you are on your own hook, and at the last minute they needed to get home and had to pay full fare for their ticket and so on. So, are the people who issue the tickets in medical travel aware of the fact that they can approve return flights under those circumstances? Do they have the authority to grant that? Thank you.
We are trying to ensure that all of our staff are up to date, they understand the policies, they understand the policies that exist. We are actually doing a medical travel review and modernization to improve the medical travel experience. One of the things that we’re doing is focusing on client service and making sure that all of our medical travel staff have gone through and are certified as customer service agents, which means they will be able to work better with our clients.
In the case the Member is describing, I would certainly be happy to look at it to make sure everything worked out, or if it didn’t, we can fix it to make sure it doesn’t happen again. We are trying to ensure our staff are trained. We are trying to ensure they understand the policies. We are trying to ensure they know what latitude they have. But at the end of the day, everything around medical travel is going to require some sort of medical practitioner’s recommendation for changes, so we still need to make sure that the medical system is involved. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Like so many other government policies, this one needs common sense and it needs flexibility because there are probably lots of times when somebody is going to be an escort for a patient, if they are going for 21 days or more, in all likelihood it may not be practical or it may not be necessary for that escort to stay with that patient for that entire time. It may just be required that they travel with them, make sure they are delivered into the hands of a health care practitioner down there and they may not need someone to stay. You’re not travelling with the patient, so your expenses aren’t covered isn’t a very good answer from medical travel. I don’t know what my question is, except let’s make it real, let’s make it common sense and let’s make it simple. Thanks.
I agree completely. That’s what we are trying to accomplish through medical travel modernization. We want to have clear rules. We want to make sure people understand their obligations under the rule and understand the Medical Travel Policy, that they understand their roles, both as a professional and as a recipient and that it has the human component built in. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.
