Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Minister of Health and Social Services.
Given infertility is designated as a chronic illness, does the GNWT intend to recognize it as a medical condition and offer financial supports to residents? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Minister responsible for Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, first of all, let me say I appreciate the disappointment that families experience when they want to conceive a child and they are unable to do so.
The GNWT provides services to treat underlying medical conditions that cause infertility, both diagnose and cause infertility. This is part of our insured health services. And that would include medical examinations to determine the reasons for infertility as well as treatment and surgery to correct physiological and anatomical causes of infertility.
When it comes to IVF, in vitro fertilization, this is not an insured service in the NWT, and there are currently no plans to include it as an insured service in the NWT. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have to apologize to the Minister because I'm going to ask a question that I did not provide in advance just in relation to what she said.
So the pieces of treatment that are covered, will medical travel pay for any medical travel associated to access those services because a lot of those services aren't available in the territory? Thank you.
Yes, thank you. Mr. Speaker, this would go through the normal referral process of the patient going to a general practitioner potentially leading to a more specialized investigation and if a diagnosis is provided that requires treatment out of territory that is an insured service, then that would be part of the regular medical travel program where I'm sure the Member is familiar with the criteria for providing medical escorts. So we're talking about two different things here. We're talking about infertility as a medical condition and we're talking about in vitro fertilization. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my next question for the Minister: is Health and Social Services doing any work right now to explore expanding the financial supports for fertility treatment that they do provide to NWT residents? Thank you.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are not exploring any of those options. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, like Newfoundland, the NWT does not offer fertility treatment in its own jurisdictions, and the travel for this can be quite expensive, and I know that the Minister did reference working with a specialist, getting approval from a specialist and travelling south. But there seems to be a bit of some gray area between what some see as being a chronic illness and what some see as being an elective process. And so it means that not everything is covered and not everybody has access to medical travel. And so is the Government of the Northwest Territories Health and Social Services willing to explore financial grants that cover travel costs for people like the province of Newfoundland has done in order to support families in their quest for family expansion? Thank you.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this would be, I think, decided on a casebycase basis depending on the diagnosis received from the physician and what followup steps are required. And if this is part of our insured health services, then there's the potential for access to medical travel.
I'm not familiar in any detail with what Newfoundland and PEI offer so I'm unable to make that comparison. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Hay River South.
