Glen Abernethy

Thanks, Madam Chair. I am happy to answer the question now. We did send the draft Medical Travel Policy to the Standing Committee on Social Programs to provide us with input. We are just tweaking it right now at which point we’ll be sending it to the executive for final consideration. At the same time, we are also working on the individual pillars that fall under the Medical Travel Policy and right now we’re actually doing the work on patients, supports and escorts that began in 2014, December. Our consultants have travelled to communities like Hay River, Inuvik, Tuk and Behchoko. They’ve gone...

Thank you, Mr. Chair, just to be clear, these are grants and contributions. There are dollars that are flowing out to other organizations such as the authorities but as well as other organizations for specific programming. This is in no way, shape or form indicative of the entire budget being spent on mental health and addictions by the Department of Health and Social Services. I believe that number is closer to $15.7 million. For some specifics I will go to the deputy minister.

Actually, the Member for Yellowknife Centre answered that question earlier. We do have a 1-800 Helpline that is available 24/7 for individuals who need to talk to somebody if they’re experiencing some level of crisis. We also have the Dalhousie psychiatry program here in the Northwest Territories. It does take a referral to get to that program, but individuals can access that as a way and means of getting support they need when they may not be able to get an in-person visit. We do have community counsellors, as well, through most of the communities, and I do encourage people to follow up with...

The Department of Health and Social Services has just recently put in 32 indicators to monitor the effectiveness of the health and social services system here in the Northwest Territories. But we also rely on information that other organizations are putting together to help us make informed decisions here in the Northwest Territories, organizations such as CIHI. Any nationally recognized organization that is doing this type of an analysis, we do get the information and we do look at it. We’re always looking for ways to improve our reporting mechanisms. So, we will certainly look at that, and...

That actually falls under the out-of-territory hospitals expenses.

The work to set them up is actually occurring right now, but the money actually hasn’t been transferred. A supp will be coming to Committee of the Whole later, in the next couple of weeks. It’s a transfer from ECE. So we’re beginning the work now and when the supp is passed, the money will be there and the dollars will be used to create the program in Tuk. So it is going to be new in ’15-16. There is only a month and a half left in this fiscal year.

I’m not prepared to commit to a standard today. We’d have to do some analysis and research to see what would be reasonable. I will say that throughout the Northwest Territories the wait times do vary. For instance, in Yellowknife it’s two to three months for counselling, two months for adult psychiatry and it could be two or three months for child and youth psychiatry, and these are for non-urgent issues. In the Sahtu, in Tulita it’s two months. In Deline it’s, surprisingly, turned out to be about two weeks; Colville Lake, one month. In the Deh Cho, Fort Providence is about three weeks, Fort...

The increased cost as a result of the Health Information Act is in this budget, the 2014-2015 budget, which means it’s also in the 2015-16 budget. For the detail, Ms. DeLancey.

I’m not aware of the overload in Tsiigehtchic but I’ll certainly take that under consideration, sorry, in McPherson, and I’ll certainly have a conversation with the public administrator of the Beaufort-Delta Health and Social Services Authority to see if we can get that figured out.

There’s already a number of community-based organizations that do provide different types or different levels of support. They may not be in every community. In Yellowknife, by way of example, there is the Tree of Peace that does provide some of those services.

We offer, throughout the Northwest Territories, two deliveries in every region. The Mental Health First Aid program, which is actually a wonderful program and I encourage… Actually, I’d like to challenge all the MLAs to actually take the Mental Health First Aid. I’d also like to challenge the MLAs to have their CAs take Mental Health...