Glen Abernethy

Quality assurance is a critical component of the healthcare system to ensure that we have feedback to actually ensure that the system is meeting its needs. Every health and social services authority has a patient representative who can work to address these concerns quickly and efficiently at the regional level. Concerns can also be raised with the CEO, board chair, or public administrator in the case of the Deh Cho. The department also has as system navigator who can be contacted by phone or email and helps to resolve complaints and concerns. A formal written complaint can also be sent to the...

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to announce that the Government of the Northwest Territories has, for the fourth year in a row, been chosen as one of Canada’s Best Diversity Employers for 2016. This recognition by the Globe and Mail and Mediacorp Canada Incorporated distinguishes organizations that strive to include women, Aboriginal peoples, visible minorities, persons with disabilities, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender peoples in the workplace. Receiving the award places the GNWT among an exclusive group of Canadian employers who have demonstrated a commitment to create a workplace...

As the Minister of Finance has indicated, we are in a difficult financial situation. We do need to be very careful with the money that we're spending. We also have to look within to make sure that the dollars that we're spending are getting maximum effect and maximum benefit.

I will commit to working with Members through the business planning process to identify where our dollars are being spent, and as I indicated, once we have actually moved forward to one authority and we have a more consolidated budgeting process, we'll be in a better position to have a discussion with the Member and...

We currently spend about $2.7 million on shelters in the Northwest Territories as well as an additional $200,000 that's available to communities or regions that don't have shelters. There is, as the Member said, no set formula for determining the allocation authorities, and there certainly isn't a formula to provide for forced growth to the shelters or to the NGOs. This is something that we certainly are happy to look at and would be happy to have more discussions with the Member in committee. We have looked at various ways to address inflationary increases in shelter costs. Personally, I...

Community counselling is a key community-level component of the continuum of mental health and addictions treatment. We have, as I’ve indicated, community counsellors in 19 of the communities in all the regions of the Northwest Territories, and where we don't have them in individual communities, we do have telephone counselling and fly-in services that are available. We want to continue to provide these services. We have actually developed new guidelines that our community counsellors can use when assessing and providing treatment, and when individuals are in immediate or crisis situations, we...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member, when he was actually the Minister of Health and Social Services, conducted the Minister's Forum on Mental Health and Addictions, which I think was a very important process. The forum went out and talked to residents across the Northwest Territories and got their feedback on what they wanted to see when it came to mental health and addiction treatment here in the Northwest Territories, so I do applaud the Member for his leadership in that area. The number one, best solution? There isn't one. What we heard clearly from the forum is that different...

The CEOs are always trying to balance off staff resources with community needs to deliver the best services possible to all the residents of the Northwest Territories at a community level. The walk-in process in Fort Simpson was not found to be effective. With low volumes of patients coming into the clinic in the morning and high volumes of patients showing up in late afternoon, this actually led to long wait times for patients, and then limited the amount of time with each patient, and mostly they were only able to address specific issues when an individual came in given the limited time.

The...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the department's mandate and duties are outlined clearly in the Health and Social Services Establishment Policy very broadly. The department plays a coordinating and policy role, which includes setting standards and policies, providing subject-matter expertise, flowing funding, setting reporting requirements, and monitoring for compliance. The department has some direct program areas that their responsible for as well, the vital stats, as well as health insurance. Authorities are the delivery agents of the Health and Social Services System and their role is...

I think we're saying the same thing. We both believe this is a priority and we want to continue to move forward, but we have to do it light of the fiscal realities that we're facing. I've committed to doing the review once we move to a single authority, and to having continued discussions on this particular topic during business planning.

We want the same thing. We just have to find a way of getting there.

Originally the pilot was only intended to last one year, with the intent, as I said, to see whether or not this level of position could do the patient watches. There was some turnover in the department as a result, or rather in the authority as a result. The pilot was extended so that they could review to see if it was actually providing or meeting the intent. At the end of the day, security was still required in those units to provide those patient watches, and since then, we have actually enhanced the security levels within Stanton so that these positions are actually no longer required. The...