Glen Abernethy

I agree with the Member completely. We need to think outside the box and I’m certainly happy to have some conversations with the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, who is responsible for income support. I don’t know if that will work. I don’t know what mechanisms might exist, but I’m certainly willing to have that conversation and that discussion with him. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Once again, I’m not comfortable talking about a specific individual, but we do have a Medical Travel Policy, it is under review. In the future it will address the types of situations the Member is discussing. I’d be happy to sit down with the Member and talk about this particular situation and get the details and have the department get involved, but this is part and parcel with many of the concerns that we’re hearing about medical travel and in particular around escorts and non-medical escorts. This is work that we need to get done. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, there is always an exception process that individuals can access if they feel that they’ve been declined medical travel. It’s not always going to be exactly what the Members want or what the individual residents want, but we do try to meet their challenges and the issues that are coming forward, and we are attempting to find solutions for individuals on non-medical escorts. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, in the last sitting I talked about the schedule for the review of the Medical Travel Policy, and we were hoping to have the base Cabinet policy ready for discussion on March 31st of this year. I did have an opportunity to get briefed by the department and go through that Cabinet policy and I didn’t feel that it was quite right and it needed some additional work, so I’ve actually sent it back to the department.

Between that and some other competing priorities, we are a little behind. I’m hoping to have that Cabinet policy to Cabinet and then to Standing Committee on Social Programs...

I will commit to having a conversation with the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, but it would be impossible for me to commit to finding a solution within a seven-day session. So we will have the conversation, we will explore any opportunities that exist and I will keep the Member informed. Thank you.

On the Medical Travel Policy now, there is a per diem that is provided. It may not be sufficient enough to cover some of the costs that the Member is talking about, but I know that communities throughout the Northwest Territories have stood up and have been supporting members of their communities when they are away for extended periods of time.

During my discussions with residents across the Northwest Territories and with Members, we’ve heard a lot of suggestions on escorts and what we need to be doing. I’ve heard individuals say we need to actually create or employ some dedicated escorts in...

I’ve been the Minister of Health for about four months now, approaching five, and I’ve had this brought up to me several different times, and I personally have had the opportunity to sit down with residents in the Northwest Territories who have experienced cancer who have expressed the exact types of concerns that the Member is bringing up with me. We do have a cancer patient navigator position within Stanton. That position is intended to help individuals through the system. But I hear the Member and I know that we need to do a little bit more work there. We do have the Aboriginal health and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize a couple of individuals: Ravan Bedingfield and Jessica Marriott. Jessica and Ravan are policy analysts with the Department of Health and Social Services and I would like to acknowledge their role for preparing for session and for keeping track of all the work that’s going on in the House, and I want to thank them for all their hard work and commitment. Thank you and it’s great to have you both here.

With respect to the on-the-land programming that we’re currently piloting with the different organizations through the Northwest Territories, each one is radically different, and each one has been designed by communities and Aboriginal governments with clinical partners to suit some specific needs they’re trying to address within their communities. Each one is different. We will have evaluation frameworks around each one. In many ways, each one of these approaches are unique to the Northwest Territories as well as anywhere else, so we are going to put evaluation frameworks in to make sure that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Based on recommendations from the Minister’s Forum on Addictions, we have been pursuing options for on-the-land programming as well as mobile treatment. The on-the-land program may not be the most appropriate locations for specific hard core or hard drug addictions, but we do have some facilities in the South that we are contracted where that might be more appropriate. We’re working with a number of different groups who have come forward with a bunch of different opportunities for on-the-land programming. Some of them are for more after-care follow-up, some of them are...