Thank you for the question, MP Vidal.
I think that before we get into solutions I must also share about the two-tier system that we find ourselves with here in the NWT.
If you are a government employee, chances are, by a factor of four, that you are a non-indigenous person. Your medical travel benefits allow for a hotel of your choosing, rental vehicle or taxis, flexibility in travel and the treasury rate of approximately $135 per day for meals and incidentals. Many of the employees of the governments of NWT or Canada often use these medical travel excursions to extend and see family or go off to other destinations on personal travel. It is a true benefit.
If you are a resident of the Northwest Territories who is not a government employee, chances are you are indigenous as we compose the majority of the population. Some of these individuals are status Indians under the Indian Act. NIHB benefits apparently mandate that you either stay at the larga house in Edmonton or the Vital Abel home in the community called N'Dilo, which is adjacent to the city of Yellowknife. Your location depends on where your medical appointments or procedures may be located. If either of these facilities are at capacity, as they often are, you are required to stay at the Chateau Louis Hotel in Edmonton or the Slave Lake Inn hotel in Yellowknife, and I must say, you are mandated to those locations.
You're often told that you are to travel with as little notice as two to three hours prior to a flight and God forbid you need to modify your return. You are provided with a response from the administration at the NWT Health and Social Services Authority that this can only be done at your cost, which is often anywhere from $100 to $500. You are provided with transportation that, at times, can have individuals waiting in an airport for up to 90 minutes and a grand total of $18 per day for meals and incidentals. You then have to submit a travel expense for these costs. I might add, it's $18 a day and it may take as much as two months for a cheque or an EMT to arrive for you to be reimbursed for those expenditures.
I think that is the first thing that needs to be addressed, that two-tier system we have in the NWT.
I spoke about care and compassion, and we would welcome the opportunity at the Gwich'in Tribal Council to administer a medical travel program on behalf of NIHB, because we feel that nobody knows our people and the personal situations that many of them find themselves in better than our own people. A program administered by the council would be more understanding and provide a latitude for our managers to be able to make some of these decisions, because often what we find is that our government of the NWT staff who are enforcing the policy take a very narrow view of the policy, which results in denials that then get escalated. Appeals are denied and then they get escalated to elected officials such as the Minister of Health or people like me or other MLAs of the Northwest Territories. Then some of those decisions are finally rescinded, changed and overturned to allow for medical travel escorts, as I mentioned earlier.
Having that level of care, whichever way brings that level of care that I speak about that is so desperately needed in the system, however we did that, we certainly would see a dramatic improvement in the delivery of these services.