Statements in Debates
I'm glad the Member had an opportunity to attend one of the healthy living fairs; and I hope the Member had an opportunity to stroll through the giant colon and see the impacts of colon health and cancer.
For the rest of the Northwest Territories, it's certainly an interesting adventure. The health living fairs are an incredibly important tool. I think it's great that they're getting out to residents of the Northwest Territories, and I'm thrilled, absolutely thrilled, to hear that the event was packed. I think as MLAs, as Ministers, we all need to encourage our residents to go to these fairs...
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, recognizing that we do take the concerns raised by the Privacy Commissioner very seriously, we continue to move forward on those recommendations. The report was based on a previous fiscal year. Some things have changed since then and before she made her report. We do take her concerns very seriously.
In the past four months, we have hired a new chief health privacy officer, and they have been engaged in discussions across the government and in clinical settings. Coming out of these meetings and discussions, suggestion on how to improve some of the processes and...
Yes. Thank you. Yes, the Member is correct. This is the right area; it is under population health. Just going back to the other question, yes, I have met the Member from Deh Cho. He is a pretty reasonable person. I am sure he won't mind me sharing a little bit of information with you, but I will also share some information with him. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, this is the area where population health is located.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I haven't had anybody discuss that with me. It is not a discussion we have had. There are a number of essential services that are delivered by third parties. Avens is a prime example. There is a lot of value in engaging communities and people who live in the smaller communities who aren't necessarily associated with government, which sometimes makes people nervous. Independents can be valuable. At this time, no, there has been no plan to bring them into the public service. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
As I indicated in my previous responses, we do have some new positions that have been put in place to do this type of analysis and put the policies around that. I can't say for certain exactly what those processes are today. Once again, I will get that information for the committee and the Member.
Mr. Speaker, I had an opportunity to travel with members of the standing committee as they toured different facilities in southern Canada. I think we had a lot of good discussion. I think we learned an awful lot from that experience. As far as setting a priority for the next action plan, I do want to be cautious. I don't want to pre-suppose what's going to be in that document. We still have some work to do. We still have feedback coming from committee. I think all that is going to be incredibly important to help us have an informed discussion and set our priorities moving forward. We do know...
Mr. Speaker, we heard clearly from many people across the Northwest Territories that on-the-land and traditional healing is incredibly important to them, and it is certainly, for many people, part of the process that they are going to go through as they proceed down their healing journey. There are a lot of questions about on-the-land healing programs. There really hasn't been an evaluation mechanism, but we have worked with our Indigenous partners here, in the Northwest Territories, to start the development of an evaluation framework so that we can see and try to assess some of the value.
Obvi...
The situation in Hay River and Inuvik were different. As we roll out the Health Information Act, we get out and train. Also, as we move forward with the single authority, what is clear is that, in the past, not all authorities have applied rules as consistently or the same as others. Having a single authority has really given us an opportunity to make sure that our rules and our procedures and our territorial legislations be applied consistently.
The Hay River situation, as I said, was slightly different than the Inuvik situation. The data that was in question wasn't the same type of data. The...
We have the territorial risk manager, as I have indicated. We also have a territorial health information director or manager. At a local level, all employees are in fact custodians and have a responsibility under the Health Information Act. Ultimately, in every one of our regional offices, the COOs have the responsibility to ensure that all of their staff are properly trained and have a clear understanding of their obligations under the Health Information Act.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document entitled “2017 Annual Report Public Utilities Board of the Northwest Territories." Thank you, Mr. Speaker.