Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in my Member's statement, I spoke about the issues we're having with escorts for elders travelling to Yellowknife or Inuvik or Edmonton. I'd like to ask my colleague, the Minister of Health and Social Services, what the department's doing to look at dealing with the issue of the onerous bureaucracy that these elders have to go through to get an escort to escort them out? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Inuvik Boot Lake. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, within our medical travel policy, it, you know and I'm not sure if I mentioned it in this House before but there are many streams in our medical travel policy. There are the NIHB clients who fall under the NIHB rules. There are the Metis benefits. There are extended health client benefits clients that all fall those ones fall under the GNWT medical travel policy.
When it comes to regards to escorts, Mr. Speaker, there are certain criteria in the escort policy that must be you know, that the person whoever's travelling, if it is an elder, as the Member has mentioned in the statement, that can't speak English, then that should be put in as a request as there is a language barrier and that would be fall under our policy. But if it is put in as an elder and because of their age, that doesn't meet our criteria. If it's an Indigenous person, it doesn't meet NHIB's criteria. Right now, there's an actual program I think it's a pilot program that's being funded by ISC, Indigenous Services Canada, with Inuvialuit. So Inuvialuit members can go through their office and request for if they are denied through NHIB criteria, they can apply through them to have compassion escorts or, you know, and so. But that is directly a bilateral between that group. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I understand there's a policy for this. What I'm saying is that if you have an elder, is there not a way and I get that, you know, there is the different plans out there. But, again, you have an elder who whether they're going down to have a hangnail removed, it doesn't matter. If there's an elder and they don't speak English, they need to be navigated, they need help navigating even to get to their appointments, is there not something we can do to kind of streamline that so, again, that paperwork is not being done. If there's not anybody in and medical travel is medical travel, and I'm sure the Minister has heard many, many questions on medical travel. Is there not something we could do to streamline that so when you get to the situation of you have an elder in the community, it's just automatic there's an escort in there.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, if there are you know, I guess, again, if it's an elder, you know I hear the Member. I know of many stories, you know, and I'm not going to deny that this is something that we are aware of. We know this is a gap in our policy, and that is why the medical travel policy is its own target in our you know, in the business plans. And so this is one of the areas that I really want to focus on. I want to use some of the information I will learn probably from the bilateral with Inuvialuit, and also to be able to hear from we have the Indigenous patient advocates who are constantly hearing this. They're taking the data. We know that this is an issue. And I'm not going to say in this House that it's not a gap, but it is, and I recognize it, and I am working towards trying to figure out ways to deal with this. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I'm very happy to hear that. And I know the Minister realizes that this is not this is not a new concern, something that's been just brought to the forefront.
Can the Minister elaborate a little more, I guess, on medical travel and the plan? Is medical travel in its entirety undergoing a review, or are we just looking at kind of the escort side. Maybe the Minister could speak to that. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I will say that I want the entire how we move patients in the Northwest Territories is what the focus I want to look at. How we move them, who's moving, what are the things that we cannot have to move people for. Is there ways that we can put things into communities that it's going to be less expensive in the long run. It's more of a fulsome review of how we move people for medical in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Final supplementary. Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.
Thank you. And that is, indeed, excellent news, and I'm sure it's excellent news for those that have been struggling with our medical travel system for the past several years. Just, again, a final question. I mean, likely it's a redundant question given how this government has now been approaching what we do, but she will be engaging and consulting with all Indigenous governments on this plan, I assume? Thank you.
Yes, thank you. Medical travel is, I think, probably one of the standing agenda items with Indigenous governments. Every Indigenous government that we speak to will raise this issue. I am committed to continuing to work with Indigenous governments and hearing what their concerns are with how we move patients.
They've also stressed the issues from the Council of Leaders to Indigenous Service Canada, how we move patients. So it's not just the government policy part. It's the work that we're doing on the NIHB medical travel policy with you know, in collaboration with Indigenous governments. So thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
