GN short on health cash for uninsured non-Inuit

Curley: “The funding is usually insufficient to meet all of the demand”

By NUNATSIAQ NEWS

Nunavut’s health minister, Tagak Curley, said in the legislature this past week that there’s not enough money to cover all requests for non-Inuit extended health care benefits.

“The funding is usually insufficient to meet all of the demand. This program is being used fully and demand is growing,” Curley said in a committee of the whole session March 9, where MLAS were scrutinizing his departmental budget.

But Curley said a review of all health and social services programs in Nunavut will address the issue.

In the meantime, he said he has asked patient boarding homes not to turn away non-Inuit residents of Nunavut who qualify for extended health care benefits.

Extended health care benefits are supposed to help Nunavummiut who are not covered under the non-insured health benefits program for Inuit and other aboriginal people.

This program includes coverage for the extra costs of receiving medical care, such as air travel and accommodation.

There’s an assistance package for non-Inuit Nunavut residents over the age of 60 who are diagnosed with certain diseases or conditions, and who do not have employee health benefits.

But the application of this program has left some non-Inuit Nunavummiut, including children and elders, faced with large bills for accommodation, pateient escorts and travel.

Last year, Rev. Mike Gardener, 79, a retired Anglican minister who has lived in Nunavut for more than 50 years, was billed thousands of dollars for a stay at Ottawa’s Larga Baffin patient boarding home, and told to move out.

James Arvaluk, the MLA for Tununiq asked Curley what the coverage would be for a Nunavut resident “who will never go back to the south again, and are not covered under the territorial employment program, or any other program.”

“I think we had a good example a few months ago when a person was being kicked out of the Larga house for being a non-Inuk, who is probably not as well off as a whole lot of Inuit… what kind of direction do you give your employees now so that kind of embarrassment does not occur again,” Arvaluk asked.

Calling the billing of Rev. Gardener an “unfortunate matter,” Curley said the extended benefits program funding is inadequate.

“That matter highlighted some problems that helped us understand how this government has to better service all of its residents,” Curley said.

Nunavut’s patient boarding homes have been told “welcome all residents, and to ensure that certain practices are corrected,” he said.

“I have informed my staff to ensure that even if a non-eligible person goes there by mistake, they will not be billed nor told that they owe this amount for accommodation after their allotment is expired. We have ensured that this will not happen again.”

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