Glen Abernethy

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Member for raising this particular issue. The Member did raise this issue in July and at that point I was able to read the report that the Member has referred to, and the report suggested that we can support this small number of children who are affected here in the Northwest Territories with a very small sum of money.

I have since directed the department to move forward to find the money from within to provide hearing aids to young children that the Member is describing. They’re in the middle of that process now. I was going to wait until a little bit later...

I do agree with the Member. In fact, I agree so much that when this issue came to my attention, I did ask for a formal external review to be done to help us determine how on earth we didn’t know before August 6th, how the situation happened and how we can, as a system, better respond in the future to make sure that our people are informed in a timely way.

I do also want to recognize, having said that, we still have to recognize the importance of the practitioners and their obligations under a situation like this, which is: stop the harm, work with the patients, then communicate. Thank you, Mr...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you to the Member for bringing this to the floor of the House. This was a significant issue here in the Northwest Territories within the Department of Health and Social Services and very troubling to both the department and the residents of the Northwest Territories, I’m sure. The physicians, the practitioners here in the Northwest Territories stood up and reviewed every one of the 1,500 files to determine who, if anybody, was at risk, who got information, when they got information and how they got information. At the end of the day, there were eight...

It’s a great idea and I will certainly share that information with the department and ask them to ensure that we have mechanisms to ensure that our patients are adequately informed about their privacy rights and their information rights, and to encourage them to include people who should be involved or be aware of their files, particularly family.

This will be a lot easier moving forward with one system as opposed to multiple systems, and this is the type of conversation I know that the professional staff that we have working on amalgamation have been having.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the health care system, privacy and privacy rights is an incredibly important factor in providing services, and effective today we have the Health Information Act that actually guides our ability to share information. It indicates when we can share the information and also indicates when we can’t share information. Prior to today we were bound by ATIPP.

So, when it comes to health privacy and those types of concerns, I would strongly encourage you and I would strongly encourage all Members to make sure that when individuals are in the health care system, they are very...

We do have to write some policies; we do have to make sure that we have the ability to provide the actual physical hearing aids. I will get more information for the Member. I will get back to you on when we anticipate to go live. Thank you.

Because we have such a small population here in the Northwest Territories and everybody who’s going to need a hearing aid does have to go through the audiology unit at the Stanton Medical Clinic, we know the individuals who are going to be coming through and how many children are going to be affected. It’s been a very small number over the last number of years. We anticipate that the cost in 2012 was around $22,000. The technology prices haven’t radically changed. We believe it’s going to be about the same amount of money. But as I said, once I have more details I will absolutely be sharing it...

The external review will help us identify exactly what was known and when. The department was not aware of this particular situation until August 6th. I have had a couple briefings on this particular issue with staff from Stanton and staff from the department and there have been some rumblings out there. In fact, I understand that there were some issues between Yellowknife Health and Social Services and Stanton, but when they reviewed those they thought those were an internal issue and didn’t realize the territorial scope of this problem until August 6th. At that time, and I just want to...

When it comes to patient safety and patient care, we will defer to the medical practice on ensuring that the situation is dealt with. At present, when situations like this occur, the first thing that must happen is to stop the problem from continuing, to remove all opportunities for harm. That was done in this particular case. The second step is to follow up with the individuals who may have been impacted, which was also done in this case. At that point we would move forward with some notification to the public, once we understand the magnitude, scope, and the residents have in fact been dealt...

I know that with the new proposed Mental Health Act we actually have that provision in the legislation to designate an alternative decision-maker. As far as patients not covered under the Mental Health Act or the future Mental Health Act, I’m not actually sure, but I will check and I will get back to the Member.