Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'd like to thank you and the committee on indigenous and northern affairs for the opportunity to contribute to your study of the accessibility and administration of the non-insured health benefits program. I am on the line from Yellowknife, cap

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  It would certainly be helpful if medical travel was fully funded and there was some consideration of the escort policy and whether it was a culturally safe escort policy. We get a lot of complaints from people coming from small communities who are not accustomed to travelling to

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We mirror NIHB with our own ministerial policy on medical travel. The policy has four or five criteria, but none of them involves cultural safety or dislocation compassion or whatever. They speak strictly to areas such as mobility; interpretation; about to give birth; and needing

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to clear up a bit of confusion that I see between my answer and Minister McPhee's answer. The escorts that I am talking about are non-medical escorts. They are not there to provide any kind of medical service. They are there to assist the person gett

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  In order to advance reconciliation, it's important to take cultural safety into consideration. There's a lot of mistrust in the health system, even to this day, because of the way it has been administered historically. If there are ways to take that mistrust into account and to a

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you. It's very important that people see themselves reflected in the health care staff. It builds confidence in the system. We've recently started a program here whereby we have hired indigenous wellness counsellors who were trained at Rhodes college in B.C. We have made

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I recognize that time is valuable and that people give it up to be medical escorts. My concern is about the cost. We mirror NIHB to our whole population. We have about 18,000 medical travel trips a year, not all of them with escorts. Maybe about a quarter of them are with escorts