Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I thank the Minister for that. I've got a little bit of issues that I have, to get to a point like with prevention with the nursing station into the hospitals, that interaction with the health centre in the hospital, say, of Inuvik. How does it work in regards to making sure -- I'm having a lot of people with cancer that are too late, stage 4. I have a couple of individuals that I heard of in my riding. How does that work in regards to follow-up to making sure that they're being seen. I know that when they're in the system with Alberta, when they go down, come here, they...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't know what staff in the communities, who do they call? Is it a number they call? I don't even know that because we never -- in Tuktoyaktuk, per se, I have elders in Ulukhatok that need translation. Are there people that are hired in the communities to do that? Are they on an on-call basis, or they're full staff? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to meet with the Minister in regard to working together for small communities and try to do a plan, like how I used to do it back in the 17th Assembly, bringing people into the community, as an MLA, travelling with them and to assist them and to help them. I look forward to working with the Minister. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It sounds all good on paper with what we are providing with regards to services. We do have a shortage of counsellors in our community. The one counsellor, she phoned me the other night in dealing with issues coming up in our communities, but I'm not only talking about Tuktoyaktuk. I'm talking about Nunakput as a whole: Ulukhaktok, Sachs Harbour, Paulatuk. We needed a person, like I said, a person to come in or a team to come in to work with the community on the depression, the alcoholism, anything, anything that they want to talk about to get off their chest. We need help. A lot of people, we...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My statement today is on mental health in the small communities. A lot of people are hurting from depression with all the deaths that we have been having over the last year, with the bullying, and it all comes into a cycle. We have to step up as a government, Mr. Speaker. I asked a couple of weeks ago. How I used to do it with the youth: I used to travel, and I would bring a professional hockey instructor or someone to come into the community. We would go to the school and do school talks, and you would feed them. You are there for three or four days, but we would do...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just regarding that, has any thought been given, Madam Minister, in regards to the healthcare advocates in regards to helping patients who can't really speak out for themselves, the healthcare advocate that we brought up two weeks ago in the House here? Is there any thought given to that, trying to promote that? One or two in the Delta, five here in Yellowknife, but is there any way to do that? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Just in regards to that, thank you for that. Are all dialects covered in regards to Inuinnaqtun, Siglit? Are those covered in this CanTalk? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just in regards to page 179, it's all based in, the community healthcare clinics in my riding, I'm hoping to make sure that the adequate doctors visit in the community more. Then it's kind of in regards to -- especially for the cultural, in regards to the community groups for languages, too, for translators that are coming in. Where are the translators? Do they have them on call in regards to for the doctors because a lot of our elders, they won't say anything in regards to when they're being talked to. Proper interpretation, is that being done? I'll start off with that...

I want to thank the Minister for that. That travelling team that she just brought up, they should be sent into all communities, other than the central locations. The smaller communities are needing it. You know that, Mr. Speaker; you live in a small community. What we have to do is we have to start trying to help them, in regards to trying to heal them and trying to move forward because this COVID-19 has been hard on everybody. I want to thank, again, the Minister, and when are we going to get these travel teams into Nunakput since she brought it up?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My Member's statement today was needing help in our small communities for mental health issues. Is the Minister of Health willing to work with us Regular Members and myself, in particular, to get these teams into the communities to assist our local people who need help in our small and remote communities? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.