Statements in Debates
Thank you. Actually, the hospital is relatively low compared to those authorities that don’t have hospitals, but the Department of Health may not exercise individual operational control of the health authority, but perhaps they do. However, ultimately we must hold the Minister responsible for their funding and oversight. So, obviously, the substantial failures here in reducing claims experience have a negative consequence of large penalties that the GNWT must pay.
Can the Minister confirm that helping the authorities control these costs is not only in the interest of but ultimately the...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize Linnea Stephenson today, a Page from Weledeh.
I’d also like to recognize the work of all of our Pages and express my thanks to them. Linnea I’m sure can be found at the Snow Show at the Yellowknife Ski Club this Saturday, 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In June I received a response to my written and other questions to the Ministers responsible for the WSCC and Human Resources. They revealed the extent of penalties we pay for failed safety programs and claims payments, but they also reveal core management issues that need to be addressed.
In July we paid over $500,000 in penalties for exceptional claims and safety management practices last year, with another large penalty expected this year. Looking at the departmental safety and claims records over the past four years, improvements in positive trends are evident for...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks again to the Minister. I’m still shaking my head over this $6 million and now we have to go discuss it with a bunch of people on whether to make this operational or not, given the demands on our infrastructure dollars. I’m shaking my head.
My last question is: Are other regions in the NWT in the same situation as this Fort Smith facility? Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister for those comments. Indeed, it is a principle to try and place people as close to home as possible, obviously, when we have a facility, but no way of operating it that’s not happening. So I appreciate the Minister is going to do something about this. My next question is when? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. I’d like to just note that many of my constituents work on behalf of elders across the Northwest Territories, and certainly many of them and many of our NWT seniors are concerned about the lack of dementia facilities and services, particularly in the small communities.
So I’d like to start by asking the Minister when will full dementia facilities be available in small community health facilities across the NWT. Thank you.
So let’s see, it’s currently $2.5 million and we are adding a little bit more than .5, so something like a 20 percent increase here. When was the last time this was increased?
This Minister, I know, has some history and knowledge about the back and forth between public servants and contracting out these services. I wonder if he could remind me of what that has been and what our current thinking is. Thank you.
Thank you, again, for those remarks from the deputy minister. That sounds reasonable to me. I know that this will take a little time to put in place, and I would think it would take even longer to do an evaluation. I just appreciate the opportunity to ask questions and make sure that that evaluation process is in place. That’s all the questions I had.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I wonder if I could just get an explanation. I see there are a number of transactions related to the implementation of financial shared services. I believe that this is an opportunity for increased efficiency and, ultimately, lower operations costs. This is sort of related to the previous one we had – $436,000 – where various departments have expenses listed. I wonder if I could just get an explanation.
Again, are we further ahead? Are there efficiencies and savings related to these new expenditures for shared financial services? Just a brief explanation overview would...
Thank you. Sounds like a worthy project. I wonder, do we have any estimates of what efficiency this would gain over the normal course of events and/or do we plan to install monitoring so that we can learn valuable lessons and collect useful data on which to base future similar decisions? Thank you.