We noted a number of factors in the report that could explain the higher cost. One is simply the availability of the services. National Defence do not want their military members waiting days, weeks, and months to have treatment. So they have a much higher proportion of doctors to the population than you find in the public health care system. We say on page 15 that we found there were four times more physicians per 1,000 military members as compared to the civilian system. But 40% of those doctors are doing administrative services.
There's the physician workload we talked about earlier. There's quite a variety in workload across the country. The costs to train medical staff are included in the department's costs, which again is not the case in the public health care system. Then there's the cost of physicians on contract, which is higher than in the public system. They are paid more than even National Defence's own doctors.
Those are some of the elements. I think everyone can appreciate that the cost to provide service in National Defence will likely be higher than in the public health care system. But we expected that the department would have be able to do that analysis and say why it was costing more. Could it be because they are receiving services from the provincial health systems and they're treated as being out of province, so--you're right--the cost is higher? Is the $8,600 an appropriate level? It's that sort of information.
We make no judgment as to whether it is too high or not high enough. But we expected the department to have that kind of information and to be tracking that information to see if those costs are reasonable.