Glen Abernethy

I do, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The funding to actually run the Avens for their O and M comes primarily from the Government of the Northwest Territories. We provide about $3.6 million per year for O and M to run the Avens facility as well as about $3.4 million for the Dementia Facility. If we move forward with the expansion together with Avens, we are also going to likely be on the hook for the additional $3.6 million to run that facility. If this facility gets built, it’s fair to assume that northern residents will be utilizing that facility.

Nobody approached me as an MLA, Bob.

---Interjection

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have been working closely with Avens on their desire to increase their facility as well as improve the current facility. We have put together a committed team, a steering committee that consists of the Department of Health and Social Services employees as well as some proponents from Avens itself, and we have contributed $25,000 to this initiative, to Avens, so that they can have their individual participate.

We are doing a number of things, exploring opportunities for funding and trying to come up with the most appropriate way to move forward with the construction of...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. With respect to telehealth and a lot of the other eHealth or e-social services systems that we’re working on, there are a number of things in place and we continue to move forward with a number of initiatives. In this budget you’ll see some money for CFSIS, which is the upgrade of the Child and Family Services Information System which, no doubt the Member knows and we all know, has to be done. It is a critical piece of technical infrastructure that we need to get up and running in a useable way. Not just there but it has to be useable and functional for our staff. It is a...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We are committed to ensuring that our seniors have the beds and the supports that they need in the Northwest Territories. I hear the Member saying that we’re not doing anything, and obviously, she knows I disagree. Today the Housing Corporation has in their budget money to move forward on five independent living homes in the Northwest Territories. That’s new projects and new things that are being done by the Government of the Northwest Territories. We also know that every public housing unit is available to seniors if they qualify and if they wish to use them. We are...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wanted to just mention, but to be clear, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t a project in Simpson with the electrical, mechanical and other issues and some more concerns around infection control and stuff like that and the fact that standards have increased so much since that building was originally built. We still believe that Simpson has to be a priority.

At the same time, the Member has brought up concerns about the health stations that exist, the health cabins/health stations. I’m going to refer to them as health stations. We have two that the Member has addressed. One...

Mr. Speaker, in order to provide the traditional foods in any of our facilities, we must have policies on how to secure, prepare and serve the traditional foods. We already are providing traditional foods in a number of our communities in a number of our facilities. For instance, at Jimmy Erasmus Seniors Home they serve traditional foods and they have a policy. The Inuvik long-term care prepares traditional food within the unit itself. The Avens has a policy for the preparation and serving of traditional food. The challenge there is that they have a private contractor providing food, so we may...

That’s part of the work that we’re doing in the design or the implementation in each of the different communities or regions where we deliver this service. We need to track the types of things that are happening and put in an evaluation framework so that we can make some evidence-based decisions moving forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Every region, every community in the Northwest Territories is different and has their own unique realities. The plan was originally to put them in Hay River one year, Beaufort-Delta the second year and then move forward with Yellowknife. We are also exploring the possibility of putting it in other communities and regions. Only recently the Dehcho Health and Social Services Authority has approached us with an indication that they would be interested in doing midwifery services there. We are working with them to see when we might be able to roll that out. We do have a midwifery coordinator...