Glen Abernethy

I’m glad the Member is taking the challenge. I too will be taking Mental Health First Aid training.

The authorities have enough money to do two deliveries of Mental Health First Aid training in each of the regions every year. I will commit to getting the Member as well as all of the Members a complete list of where the Mental Health First Aid training will be, and I’ll let them know when Mental Health First Aid training is going to occur in their communities so that they can participate.

I would also encourage them, as I did previously, to please get their CAs to take it, because I know their...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The department does keep up on most of the publications that are out there with respect to health and social services and mental health. I haven’t personally seen it myself, but I will confirm, I will check with the department to confirm they have it.

We haven’t had any tri-territorial meetings with the Ministers of Health and Social Services since January 29th, so the answer to his second part is no.

Thank you, Madam Chair. As I indicated yesterday, a significant portion of the system funding within the Department of Health and Social Services is actually for the authorities. So, recognizing that the authorities report on criteria and categories that were created by CIHI and the department didn’t, we have moved to a system where our reporting system that’s in front of you now mirrors what’s coming from the authorities and is consistent with CIHI, and this is one of the categories that existed. In previous budgets these dollars would have been in one of the sections where it said “transfers...

Thank you. The dollars actually came in in the ’14-15 fiscal year, which we’re using for the transition and the planning, and it came in by way of a supp in ’14-15. So it will not show as an increase in ’15-16. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Before I answer the question, I just want to take this opportunity to thank the Members for undertaking this theme day. One of the key actions within the Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan, one of the key priority areas is to actually promote the understanding, awareness and acceptance of mental health in the Northwest Territories. It’s forums like this and Members asking questions that it starts to increase the awareness of mental health in the Northwest Territories. So I applaud them for taking it upon themselves to do the theme day on mental health and...

It could be here. A lot of those costs will be in the directorate.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I have indicated that I’d be happy to go to Tsiigehtchic and have a conversation with the leadership to determine truly what it is that they are specifically asking for and what it is that they think will meet their needs. There are lots of potential options. We ask the question of what can an LPN do within their limited scope of practice, and an LPN scope of practice is significantly less, or it can be significantly less than an RN. What is it we are trying to accomplish? We have looked at other models from other jurisdictions like Alaska where they’ve taken local people...

Over the last year and a half, I’ve had an opportunity to travel to many communities in the Northwest Territories, and we will continually hear communities talking about working towards developing interagency committees. I think there’s significant value in interagency committees. I have had an opportunity to talk to CEOs, public administrators and board chairs, and there’s support for participating in interagency communities throughout the Northwest Territories where they currently exist. We would certainly be willing to participate in…[Microphone turned off]…as they begin or start up. Thank...

Thank you. We are pursuing a mobile treatment option available to all residents of the Northwest Territories, some of who might actually be survivors of residential schools. I would also like to just remind the Member that based on discussions that we’ve already had, I’ve had the Executive and the Department of Health and Social Services get in touch with the federal government to find out what, if any, transition planning can be put into place as they exit the field around the residential school survivors. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I’m glad the Member’s actually brought this up. Our human resources are significantly the largest driver of costs in the health care system. Our employees are highly trained and compensated accordingly, and there are significant costs there. Overtime is a massive deal. I’ve asked the department, and they’ve already begun the work on doing a complete analysis of overtime usage throughout the Northwest Territories in different authorities. They’ve actually started that work now to help us figure out what, if any, areas are driving overtime to greater degrees than other areas. Trying to dig in to...