Iqaluit (Dec 20/04) - Cambridge Bay MLA Keith Peterson wants to know exactly where all the money spent on health care is going.

Six months ago, Peterson requested that the report done on medical travel by KPMG, an accounting firm, be tabled in the legislative assembly.

That report has yet to be tabled because health minister Levinia Brown said the KPMG report needed to be translated.

Peterson said he read the rule book and under legislative assembly rules translation is not a requirement in this case.

With no solid answers forthcoming about medical travel in the house this session, Peterson gave Brown's department a written question on travel costs on Nov. 26. That question, according to legislature rules, must be answered within 21 days from when it was submitted.

However, according to Bernie Blais, deputy minister of health and social services, the department has been granted an extension to Jan. 10.

Peterson is frustrated, wondering aloud if the Department of Health and Social Services has something to hide.

"As MLAs we're being asked to approve these budgets. Give us some substantiation. What seems to be causing all the increasing costs?" said Peterson in an interview with Nunavut News/North last week before he left to go back home for the holidays.

"Who is making decisions for medical transportation? Are they all necessary? Can we see the study?" he asked.

"You won't give us these studies you commissioned on travel. What's in them that we as elected officials can't see?"

As for the KPMG report on medical travel, Blais said that report will be available for Peterson in the new year.

"That process is under way," said Blais.

It has to be reviewed closely "line by line," said Blais, because it is an internal report, protected under the privacy act.

Overall, the GN's planned expenditures have risen to $941 million from about $889 million.

The deficit rose because of a need for increased funds for the department of health and social services, which had a deficit of $18 million last year and is expected to go into debt $8 million more.

Medevacs alone cost the GN about $49 million a year.

Some questions requesting information from 2000 to 2004 submitted by Cambridge Bay MLA Keith Peterson on Nov. 26 to the Department of Health and Social Services:

• How much was spent on airline tickets for patients travelling for medical treatment?
• How much was expended on accommodation and hotels or other commercial facilities for patients?
• How much was expended on accommodation and boarding homes, broken down by boarding home, for patients travelling for medical treatment?
• What percentage of medical travel for patients was by charter and what percentage was by scheduled airline service?
• How much was expended on air ambulances for patients travelling for emergency treatment?