Glen Abernethy

It is certainly something that we’re looking at doing, but at the same time we’re engaged in a significant number of initiatives and every time we’re pulled off by committee or another group to do another analysis, another research project, it has to be done by the staff that we have and there’s a number of major priorities that were set by the 17th Legislative Assembly’s Caucus that we’re working on. We’re progressing and it’s in the queue and the work will be done. Thank you.

Yes, Madam Chair, we do believe that there will be opportunities to get some economies of scale and reduce some expenditures in some areas, but the overall price of delivering health care in the Northwest Territories continues to climb. We’re not going to turn patients away and the cost continues to climb. So we don’t see an overall savings in this activity, but we do see an opportunity to save in certain areas, have some economies of scale, control future growth of expenditures and make sure that we’re getting maximum benefit for all the dollars that we’re spending within the system. So, yes...

There are many reasons why there could be high rates of overtime in a community and the impacts of that overtime are certainly something that we need to be conscious and aware of on our staff, and we do have a Collective Agreement that articulates clearly how much time a person put in. There are mandatory rest periods and all these other things to ensure people are getting the down time that they need.

But the Member is right. Once we’re doing this work, depending on where we see the high rates of overtime, it should be able to help us focus in and start asking questions about why, what’s going...

Thank you. The Healthy Family Program will be moving to Tuk in ’15-16. It was based on a supp that occurred in ’14-15. The planning is occurring now, but there will be a Healthy Family Program in Tuk in ’15-16. I’d just like to add, that’s in partnership with the IRC. As I say often, a lot of these programs really benefit from partnering with community governments, Aboriginal governments as well as other people throughout the Northwest Territories. Partnerships really make these programs better and this particular one in Tuk is being done in partnership with the IRC.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There actually is a significant amount of interest in the Deh Cho and we have been working with a variety of groups in the Deh Cho to determine what the best approach is for the residents of the Deh Cho. So as that work progresses, I’d certainly be happy to keep the Member updated. Thank you.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I do want to just articulate quickly that Yellowknife is not the only place where this diabetes program has been going on. Hay River, Fort Smith and Inuvik offer a targeted diabetes education and care program through their authorities by teams of educators that include nurses, nurse practitioners, dietitians and physicians. The Tlicho Community Services Agency, in partnership with the Tlicho Government, is training local diabetes educators to work with their nurse practitioner who will work directly with people diagnosed with diabetes to learn how to manage their disease.

Fun...

I’ll state what I’ve already said. There is a continuum of care services and opportunities for individuals who are suffering from either mental health or addictions issues from community-based counselling to residential treatment facilities. We’re still pursuing the on-the-land programming. There’s the Matrix program, which is actually an outpatient, community-based treatment program. There’s a number of these programs and they’re available throughout the Northwest Territories. Unfortunately, Matrix isn’t available in every community, but we’d obviously like to find ways to expand that out...

We appreciate the City of Yellowknife. They’re a fantastic partner on the delivery of the Day Shelter here in Yellowknife and we look forward to a continued positive relationship with them. The city is contributing some money, as are we, but at this time there are some significant infrastructure improvements that need to be made in that building so that it can meet the long-term needs, and taking that money away from the infrastructure and putting it to programs will actually adversely affect our ability to deliver those programs in the future. We need to get that construction done.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It’s already had its second reading and it’s in front of committee, is the Health Professions Act. The Health Professions Act will give us the ability to create regulations to basically licence health professionals like naturopaths in the Northwest Territories. We have four priorities in that area. Recognizing how increasingly popular naturopaths are, naturopaths are actually fourth on the list. I put on the list for something to be done with the other three immediately after the legislation passes.

It will take a while once the legislation passes and is concluded, but we...

As I indicated, we can report 77 percent to 89 percent and that’s based on the data that has been collected. Without real territory-wide electronic medical records, a real solid information system across the Northwest Territories, it does prove difficult to get 100 percent accurate information, which is why we’re moving in that direction so we can give the Members the exact totals.

I do believe, and I do feel, that our immunization rates are higher than this. We haven’t received, and I haven’t had any, strong pushback on vaccination. The early childhood programs are proving to be quite...