Yellowknife (May 21/04) - Health minister Michael Miltenberger is committing $600,000 a year to a phone service that promises basic health advice 24 hours a day across the Northwest Territories.

Tele-Care NWT is intended to be "a complimentary service, not replacement" for medical staff in hospitals and nursing stations, Miltenberger said Wednesday as the first call was made to 888-255-1010.

Miltenberger said that Tele-Care promises answers in more 100 languages, including nearly all aboriginal languages of the Northwest Territories.

The service is intended to answer basic health questions from persons in non-emergency situations and ease the load on emergency staff in the Northwest Territories.

Nurses taking the calls are in New Brunswick, said Lois Scott, vice-president and general manager for Clinidata, the company administering Tele-Care.

Based on experiences in other provinces, Scott said that 40 per cent of the system's callers don't require hospital care.

Sixty per cent of patients who used the service said they would have gone in to an emergency room for care, according to surveys in Northern Ontario and New Brunswick.