Evidence of meeting #117 for Health in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was research.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB
Can you give me an estimate of how much it would cost an individual to take on this type of technology, adopt it and make use of it?
9:25 a.m.
Chief Medical Officer, Reliq Health Technologies
Right now in Canada, we're just focused on proving that it actually works for people. We have provided in-kind service to people, while we study it.
In the United States, it's between $25 and $50 per patient, per month, which is quite cheap, when you think about it. Hospitalization for chronic disease management can cost between $10,000 and $14,000. Paying $25 to $50 per patient, per month actually generates substantial savings for the system on those levels. The illnesses are very expensive, as you're aware.
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB
The committee I usually sit on is the Standing Committee on Finance. With the disability tax credit last year, we had a situation where the CRA started mass denying people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes, especially T1Ds, their access to the disability tax credit.
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB
Have you given any thought as to whether you could integrate the services you have and track the time for the physician involved, so they are able to fill out the form for the DTC application? That's one of the areas where there are way more refusals happening right now than there ever have been before. It feels like this type of tracking would be a way to satisfy CRA's new requirements for the application for a DTC. We're talking about $2,000 to $4,000 per individual filer.
9:30 a.m.
Chief Medical Officer, Reliq Health Technologies
No, that hasn't been on a road map. But that's a brilliant idea. It's something we'll definitely look into.
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB
Okay.
Madam Bains, the service you provide just seems amazing. I'll speak personally. My in-laws are Singaporeans. So I'll talk about unhealthy eating. I've experienced all of it. All the Malay food is not what I would drum up as the healthiest food. It's most delicious, but not the healthiest.
During the provision of the service that is culturally specific in the language that is necessary, do you provide any information about the disability tax credit?
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB
From your personal experience in the different communities that you serve, do they know about the disability tax credit?
Almost 40% of those eligible for it don't actually make an application for the DTC.
9:30 a.m.
Leader, South Asian Health Institute, Fraser Health
Being a health authority, it's not something that I and our program would probably be telling people.
Actually, we haven't even thought about it. People haven't asked us about it. It would be really interesting to find out if people actually knew it existed.
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB
Okay.
The average saving is $2,000 to $4,000 depending on the income that a person has. It's a pretty substantial amount of money.
Right now the cut-off is you have to qualify for 14 hours a week of managing your condition. This would be for the more serious T1D conditions and people with type 2 diabetes, which are pretty serious conditions.
In your experience, is that a substantial amount of the population that you serve?
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB
I mean during the week in terms of managing their condition.
9:30 a.m.
Leader, South Asian Health Institute, Fraser Health
Fourteen, yes; it seems like a lot.
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB
Fourteen hours a week is pretty standard for them.
I don't mean government support, but if there was an opportunity to match the health service provision you have with.... You almost need a tax person to say, “This is also something that you qualify for. Have you ever thought about asking your physician to apply?” Do you think the communities that you serve would be interested in knowing about this?
You're already inundated with tons of information. Tax is probably the last thing anybody wants to talk about, yet they have an opportunity to save $2,000 to $4,000 depending on their taxable income.
9:30 a.m.
Leader, South Asian Health Institute, Fraser Health
I think that if people know there is an advantage for them to save money on their taxes, absolutely, that would be very important for people to know.
9:30 a.m.
Leader, South Asian Health Institute, Fraser Health
Especially people who are newer immigrants don't understand a lot of the Canadian systems, whether it be the medical, the education or tax system. I think for sure they would be interested in that.
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB
I'm going to ask Marilee.
I didn't get the advantage of hearing your opening statement before. I just want to ask about the communities that you serve. Over the past two years now, do a lot of the community members, the ones who use the services, the population that you serve, take advantage of the disability tax credit in any way? Or is it just something that they either don't qualify for or have never heard of?
October 23rd, 2018 / 9:30 a.m.
Marilee Nowgesic Executive Director, Canadian Indigenous Nurses Association
More times the answer is going to be it's something they never heard of. It's not an intense read that a lot of the first nations or Inuit communities will look into. Now that I'm hearing it from you, I think that may be something we may want to address.
We already have health care professionals who are burdened by having to fill out form after form after form, then charging that back to the clients. I'm more fearful of one more form, although it benefits the patient. It could be helpful.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB
I have bad news. It's a really complex form. It's several pages long, and it's easy to get tripped up in it. From personal experience having had my physician fill it out for one of my kids, it is not an easy thing to do.
But it's something that you think community members, if they knew more about it, would want to take up.
9:35 a.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Indigenous Nurses Association
Of course. With anything in the diabetes strategy or any diabetes type of initiative, if there's going to be an outcome that benefits the patients or the community, then of course it's something that we're going to look into for their benefit.
Where we know the incident rates of type 2 diabetes especially in first nations and Inuit communities are high, I think we have to be a little more vigilant into looking at how we're going to make that work for our people.
9:35 a.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thanks to all the witnesses for being here.
Dr. Verchere, I'd like to begin with you.
You mentioned that Canada has one of the highest rates of type 1 diabetes in the world and that it's on the rise. I think you mentioned that we don't really understand why.
Are there any theories, or is there a leading theory that's being explored in this regard?
