Glen Abernethy

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe that there are about 65 funded community health nurse positions across the Northwest Territories, and we run about an 18.5-percent vacancy on those. We are constantly out recruiting and trying to find nurses to come into our community health centres on a permanent basis.

Given that many of our nursing stations are small, with three or four nurses, when one of those individuals is either sick or has to leave on short notice, there are definitely some service impacts on that. When we know that individuals are leaving or coming to an end of a term, we have an...

I will make sure that I ask the department to take this section of the Hansard and share it with the staff in the territorial authority so that they understand and can hear the message from the MLA from his riding. The website is actually an internal website for staff only. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We are trying to evolve and continually be an organization focused on quality improvements. When we do get these positive stories, if there are recommendations in those letters or those e-mails or wherever the individual is sharing their information from, we try to use that data to help address quality improvement issues -- "this works"; "this doesn't work"; "we have got positive feedback on this type of subject" -- so that we could share those information so that could be part of a whole learning experience.

Yes, Mr. Speaker, we do try to learn from them. We do try to get them through our...

I would like to table this document as soon as I can, but I have made a commitment to work with the Indigenous governments. The Member's first line of questioning actually asked those specific questions. We will meet with our Indigenous partners. We will get their feedback and their input. If it results in changes to the Quality Improvement Plan, we will make those changes, and then we will release the document and make it public. Hopefully we will do that before next session, at which point I would be willing to table it next session. If the work that we need to do with the Indigenous...

One of the items that has been completed is we provided refresher training on SDM to 25 staff. This training is part of the training-the-trainer model, which will be implemented across the Child and Family Services system. We have also completed a written protocol for quality assurance checks of the SDM tools.

I am always happy to travel to the Member's riding, meet his constituents, and hear their concerns. If the Member is interested in doing that, I would suggest maybe contacting my office, and we will see if we could figure out a time that would work for the Member and myself. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Healthcare providers such as nurses, physicians, or nurse practitioners can actually refer clients to the home and community care program. They will do the assessment and figure out what levels of support an individual needs. However, if somebody in the Member's constituency is under the impression that they do need some home supports, I would encourage them to go to the health centre, make an appointment, and get a referral.

Once again, the position that I was referencing is actually an employee of the Vital Abel Boarding Home; they are not actually a GNWT employee, and patients would certainly be aware of that individual once they have actually attended, but we will get the information and share it with the Member so that he can share it with others.

As far as myself and the department reaching out, I won't be reaching out to the constituents who have travelled who may have concerns, but I would strongly encourage anybody who does have concerns to follow up with Yellowknife Medical Travel Office and the manager of...

Like any travel, people should usually take their own basic toiletries and personal grooming items. All of the boarding homes that we contract with do provide bed sheets and pillows and towels. Our 2017 medical travel guide, which has been shared with Members, is available to medical travel patients, and inside that document it actually provides tips on the types of things that individuals should bring with them when they travel. I would encourage anybody going to medical travel to look at that toolkit and make sure that they are bringing along items that they may need.

The process around guardianship has changed. We put some policies in place around that. Training has occurred for many of the individuals. I can't say that every individual has received that training, but every individual will receive that training. When the deputy minister met with committee in December, he outlined a number of the actions in the Auditor General's report that we have actually take action on and completed. There was a significant list there. Since then, we have even more action items that we have completed. We have committed to providing updates and reports to committee, and...