Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the process of medical travel can be confusing. Depending on what treatment you need, intake can be different and it's also not really clear to some folks who are not employed by the GNWT as to what stream of medical travel they fall into. From personal experience, the forms for medical travel are also confusing and duplicate information.
Can the Minister explain if there is any work underway to improve standard operating procedures or communications with the public for the different streams of medical travel? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Great Slave. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, medical travel, you know, in the Northwest Territories, we're moving 44,000 people at any you know, to be able to access care so it is very, very complex. And so when we think about the when I you know, as a Minister now that has to oversee this, there is medical travel that are for noninsured health benefits clients, so those who are Inuit or Status, you know, who hold a status card. Then there's extended health benefits and medical travel for those. Then there's Metis benefits for those who qualify and then the travel benefits for them. And there's the GNWT, which the GNWT administers for the six you know, whatever the amount of employees that we have and their benefits, and that is removed from the department of health now. And then there's those who don't fall in any of these categories. So with that there's things that need that are currently being done. So I just needed to make sure that people are aware that there's five different areas that this happens. So work is currently being done to review several areas.
One of the things that we've heard on and on again is the exceptions policy to streamline decisions for benefits for individuals that have undue financial hardship or extraordinary health needs and a unique situation. So that's something that's being reviewed, working collaboratively with the federal counterpart to clarify and improve the administration of the noninsured health benefits, which is very complex. They're reviewing the boarding home services and, you know, this is time like, these contracts are coming up within the next fiscal year. Gathering information from Indigenous governments because they're hearing from their residents, so. And working closely with our counter parts, you know, with like all of the airlines and the people that move people throughout the territory. And, again, like I said, yes, and shifting all of the benefits for medical travel out of health and social services to GNWT for those that so we only have to deal with the nonGNWTs. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm curious if the department has been looking into any of the most high need areas for medical travel, and what I mean by this is the areas of medical requirements that have a lot of subscription or uptake. So what I'm curious about is does the Minister think that we could bring specialists to the North to remove long haul burden on folks to go out of territory which is also a high cost for the GNWT? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to apologize to the interpreters. I know I've been talking quite fast and I've been kind of given the notice.
So, Mr. Speaker, this already occurs in many instances. You know, we have urology, pediatrics, cardiology, neurology that come here. We continue to explore opportunities to further develop sustainable interritory programs as well as remote services to supplement or replace outofterritory services. The priority is to deliver sustainable and high quality services. And you know, the medical travel and the people that are travelling not necessarily are related to specialists, there's lots of other like, for surgery, for different things, so. And we are monitoring this. And the department, we are currently reviewing everything right now within the medical travel policy because we do know it is very convoluted and complex. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And it's really wonderful to hear from the Minister that they're looking indepth to a lot of the issues that I'm highlighting today.
Mr. Speaker, I'm also wondering, though, about improvements to processes that complement medical travel. So right now if someone accesses a practitioner on medical travel in the south who recommends lab work as an example, they then must get the lab requisition redone in the territory so they can have those services completed in the NWT. The question is, can the Minister speak to what work could be done to streamline this process to change southern requisitions into NWT requisitions that can be fulfilled without the need to then go and book an appointment with the overtaxed medical practitioner system that we have? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, you know, I think that the problem like, this is an issue and this is an ongoing issue because even though we are the Northwest Territories and we do referral service to Alberta health, their practitioners are not able to and the Member has stated are not allowed to like, you can't take their requisition because they're not licensed in our territory to go in and do the blood work here. And I know that there's back and forth. It's the same thing. Like, we can't take ours and take it down there and get blood work. So you know, there's a lot of work going on behind the scenes to try and work on those types of things. You know, and I think the when I look at all of those issues, these are complex. And it has a lot to do with patient health information and the legislation around that too. So when you get your blood work done and you get services done in Alberta, they tend they'll send the patient all of the information and then the patient themselves needs to bring that to their practitioner. So I hear the Member where they're saying, and the things that we're doing behind the scenes is trying to figure out ways to mitigate that because we know it is a tax on our getting in. And there's different legislation, things that we've all talked about in the past government and this government that's going to try and help that. So thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Minister of Health and Social Services. Final supplementary. Great Slave.
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