Alfred Moses

Thank you, Madam Chair. I had some questions earlier, so there was a little bit of mix-up over on this side of the table here.

In terms of the telehealth coordinator position, I would like to ask the Minister if he can give us just a quick update on how the telehealth program is being administered, and the effectiveness, and how many of all the communities hooked up to the telehealth system are actually utilizing the telehealth services. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Just staying under this division here, in terms of long-term care, I know in Inuvik we do have a waiting list of seniors that are requesting to get into the long-term care facilities and also looking at funding for the day program use. Kind of two questions, but the first one is: Does the Minister have a plan to address the waiting list of seniors wanting to get into the long-term care unit within the regional hospital? Thank you.

Leading on to the next question, does the Minister know the stats of babies that are born with jaundice in the past fiscal year? Can he provide those kinds of stats?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to ask the Minister, in terms of under the territorial health services division, if he’s got a plan in place for the oral health care, such as dental health for some of the smaller communities that don’t have those services, and if he would be willing to commit to having a more ongoing presence in the smaller communities, such as possibly creating some type of mobile dental unit.

Dental care services that are needed for some of the dental care in the small communities are not being addressed, and in some cases our dental hygienists are only going in for a...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a quick question here in terms of health services and emergency care in the Northwest Territories, and this is specific to infants. I’m pretty sure that in Inuvik, for babies that are born with jaundice, one type of therapy is to wrap them in a BiliBlanket as opposed to phototherapy, because it’s a little bit more safe. I believe there’s only one BiliBlanket available in the Inuvik Regional Hospital. Should there ever be more than one baby that was born with jaundice, the other one would get medevacced to here to get wrapped up in a BiliBlanket or go under...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just want to ask one quick question here. The Minister said that he was waiting to hear back from the forum. I just want to know if the Minister is familiar with the Health and Social Services Regional Dialogue, 2010-2011. Can he just answer yes or no? Does he see the recommendations and directions that came from all the regional communities in the Northwest Territories, because he says he’s waiting to hear those recommendations. Is he familiar with any of these dialogues, yes or no? Thank you.

Two really quick things before my time runs out here. In terms of doing more consultation, the co-ordinator position there, I just want to, for the record, mention the groups that were consulted initially. There were 31 participants throughout the NWT as well as national organizations from the communities, as well, also a topical expert. Actually, I won’t even get into it. Hopefully the Minister does know who they are as it is in the report.

For the record, can the Minister let me know what the total costs of all the consultations – all the costs to get this report done in terms of consultation...

I’m glad the Minister has mentioned that he’s waiting for recommendations from the Ministers’ Forum. With that said, would the recommendations from the Mental Health Addictions Plan, the recommendations from the Beaufort-Delta meeting Building on our Foundation, Regional Dialogues, 2010-2011, the budget dialogues from this year, would those recommendations not say the same thing, and why are we waiting when I’ve got one, two, three, four, five, six reports here that say the same thing? I’m just trying to prove a point here that we need to start creating action rather than continue to consult...

There are just so many areas that I can continue on. Managing risk. The Midwifery Program is put in place to help a lady when she finds out that she’s pregnant. It helps support her through her pregnancy so that she gets the counselling that she needs, she gets the support, she gets the alcohol and drug treatment, healthy pregnancies. If midwifery is not there to give the support, especially for single mothers, then the high stress level of flying to Yellowknife from the small communities and spending all the time here to give birth without the support of a midwife in the community, the cost...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This past weekend I had an opportunity to become a fan of a tournament that I’d been part of growing up in Inuvik and participating in the NWT Senior Cager Basketball tournament. While I was watching the tournament, it was great to see all the kids having a good time and seeing the teamwork, the great camaraderie amongst teammates and the teams playing each other.

Just in regard to following up with last week’s Education Week and all the hard work that our educators do, what I noticed was sitting on the benches with the kids was a lot of teachers who were also coaches...