Glen Abernethy

The department is just one of the partners in putting these tools together. The NWT Seniors' Society is also a key partner in the work that has been done in this area. We are certainly going to work with the NWT Seniors' Society as well as other seniors' societies to find the best way to get that information out to seniors. I know that the NWT Seniors' Society, through the NWT Network to Prevent Abuse of Older Adults, have been around since 2009, and they try to get information out to our seniors and to our elders across the Northwest Territories. We are going to continue to work with them to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, last November I tabled Mind and Spirit: Promoting Mental Health and Addictions Recovery in the Northwest Territories, our government’s strategic framework for addressing critical issue for Northerners.

This past February I advised Members that the Department of Health and Social Services would be developing a child and youth mental wellness action plan as part of our implementation of the strategic framework. I am pleased to tell Members that at the appropriate time later today, I will table the Child and Youth Mental Wellness Action Plan.

Mr. Speaker, we...

Yes, all of them. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, similar to questions that were raised yesterday, when it comes to long-term care facilities, those are level 3/4 facilities for individuals who are no longer to live independently and have medical issues that need to be addressed in a 24/7 facility. Given the model, we are not looking to develop those in smaller communities, but rather communities where we do have medical practitioner positions on site and where there is a greater degree of care available given the acuity of these patients. We absolutely without question support aging in place. We want to keep...

The intention is for that time period to be very short. Once we get -- say let's talk peds, as an example. We'll have the staff go in; they'll do some test runs in the area. They'll make sure everything's working, and they'll move of the stuff over. Once the first patient day happens, we will be moving over the rest of the material from the peds unit as quickly as possible. It could be a week, but we don't want to have an under-resourced peds unit at any given time. We do have to have some time, but those periods of time from first patient day to all the material in in each unit will be very...

Yes, please.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we plan cautiously when it comes to moving into these facilities. The building is going to be built. It is going to be completed by the proponent. We have to go in and test all the equipment, all the medical equipment, and make sure every line that provides or supplies oxygen or other medical gases works appropriately, make sure that every line is checked, every system is verified, and we need to make sure that we give ourselves the appropriate time to make sure that the building is meeting the technical and medical and clinical specifications and requirements...

The department does work with the medical association and others to try to get that information out there. I will have a conversation with the department to make sure that they are working with our practitioners across the Northwest Territories. It does not cover every condition, but it does cover a lot of conditions. Where it is not covered, as I said, I would encourage the Member and all Members to have these people get in touch with system navigators or come to them, and the Members can come to us and we can explore opportunities.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Maybe I have not been as clear as I had intended. EMR might be the tool, but if EMR is the tool, then we will have to make some significant modifications and customizations to allow it to collect the data appropriate or consistent with the challenges people face around mental health.

What we need to do, and I think it is the appropriate thing to do, is to do some costing, do some planning, do some studying to determine which of the models, and right now, we are aware of at least nine options that are available to us. Three of them look feasible. We are going to continue to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, drug coverage under the Extended Health Benefits program for specified disease conditions has evolved over time. With regard to mental health, which is the issue the Member is raising, the only reference within the GNWT Extended Health Benefits Policy to cover conditions is chronic psychosis. Within this broad category of chronic psychosis, there are a number of specified conditions that are open to interpretation and application to a number of specific conditions.

I would add, however, that this approach to extended health benefits is clearly dated, as...