Yellowknife (Nov 12/04) - Territorial Health Minister Michael Miltenberger faced tough questions from the public at a forum on the financial state of public health care on Nov. 9, but some participants thought they got snowballs for responses.

"There will be some extra money," Miltenberger said. "We're not sure yet how much."

The territorial government plans to go ahead with cutbacks that will strip $15 million from the Department of Health and Social Services.

"Putting people through another round of cutbacks is questionable public policy," said Ben McDonald, co-chairperson of Alternatives North, which organized the forum.

He said he was slightly disappointed with the results of the forum. Some hard questions were asked, but there were few really solid answers from Miltenberger and Finance Minister Floyd Roland.

"They told us what they could, but we were hoping for more concrete information on whether it would mean better health care," said McDonald.

The federal government recently announced an extra $150 million for health care across the three territories in the next five years. In the NWT, that breaks down to $8.2 million each year, for a total of $41 million.

The total annual health care budget for the NWT is $247 million.

Miltenberger said the money is targeted to three areas of health care: $3.2 million a year will go towards medical travel expenses; $2 million is for a Northern secretariat that will review the workings of the health care system in the North; and $3 million is for health reform, which can mean anything from buying new equipment to starting up new programs.

Miltenberger said the federal and territorial governments have not yet agreed on how much of the money will take the form of loans and how much will be an outright grant.In any case, the money can only be used for short-term projects. "It's very difficult to do anything meaningful with it," he said of the federal largesse.