Julie Green

The Department of Health and Social Services is very actively working on the pandemic rather than looking back at all of the lessons learned. I am not aware that there is work being done on a digital strategy at this point. Of course, it is important to capture the lessons learned, but this is not the moment. Thank you.

I can't make that commitment. I can say that there is interest in this. I've already said that. It's in the four-year business plan that you've reviewed in the fall. Another possibility is to have a separate patient portal that is not connected to the electronic medical records but, in fact, include a wider range of records such as you mentioned in your statement: records from Alberta, paper records, images, and that kind of thing. Before we go down this road, we need to do a very comprehensive privacy assessment, and we need to answer some fundamental questions such as: Can parents access...

I just want to take the opportunity to say that, where the vaccine has been given in the small communities, every adult over 18 has received the vaccine. Of course, that includes teachers, so the teachers in the smallest communities have, in fact, been vaccinated. In terms of leaving the territory, nobody is a prisoner here. They are eligible to apply for a self-isolation plan for when they come home, isolate for 14 days. If it is non-essential travel, then they, like everyone else, will have to pay the cost of isolation, but if it is essential travel for family reasons or for medical reasons...

The Chief Public Health Officer determined the occupational groups that are in priority on the vaccine list, and the teachers are not there. I have heard from NWTTA about that. The CPHO determined the priority based on risk exposure and risk of severe illness. Fortunately for us, schools have been very healthy places. They have obviously been very diligent with their isolation, with their hand-washing, with their cleaning and so on. Maybe they have done too good a job, but they have not been placed on the priority list at this time.

I will need to return to the Member with information about what is being done right now on bringing in different sources of information into electronic medical record. I can say that I've answered a couple of questions from MLAs about records that seem to be missing from the electronic medical records for one reason and another. If the Member has a constituent who feels that their electronic medical records are incomplete, we can certainly investigate that.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The department supports, in principle, the idea of having a patient portal where patients can access their health information that's held in electronic medical records, recognizing that there is information that is not in electronic medical records. We recognize the benefits of them having confidence in managing their health themselves and to make sure they're making informed discussions with their healthcare provider. It turns out that turning this feature on is a little less like turning on a light switch and more like steering the Queen Mary. It hasn't been...

Just to say again it's the Chief Public Health Officer whose decision this is, so it's not my decision and it's not the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. We do know that we are on track to vaccinate everyone in the Northwest Territories who is 18 years and older by the end of March. At that point, teachers will be in the same position as everyone else in terms of having protection, from the vaccine, but as I mentioned last week in response to questions, I do not think that our border controls will come off at the end of March because the vaccination rate in the rest of Canada is...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to start by saying how grateful I am to the 800 teachers in the Northwest Territories for the sacrifices they have made during the pandemic to switch to virtual instruction, to forgo holidays because of the isolation required. I realize it has not been easy. I have not heard from the NWTTA on the question of rapid testing. Our rapid testing capacity does exist in every community but in a fairly limited way, so that is something that I could enquire about, whether there is any interest on behalf of the NWTTA in ramping up rapid testing for teachers.

Just first to the Member's other question. Of course, we do have family violence shelters, five of them in the NWT, and a 24/7 crisis line for people experiencing family violence. As you heard when the Minister of housing talked to the Member from Nunakput, freestanding extra places to go and take calls are in vanishingly short supply in small communities. If people are wanting to send documentation to counsellors or other entities, they can go to the government services offices that exist in most communities and they can send faxes or have scans made there in order to provide the necessary...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are vaccinating NWT residents as a priority group. We are not vaccinating non-residents because of the limited supply of vaccine available to us at this point. What we've had in place all along through the pandemic is that people who are going to work in isolated communities, really regardless of what job they are going to do, have to isolate for 14 days in one of the regional hubs and then move on, if they are welcome, in the small community, and there take the precautions that we all do, wash their hands, wear their mask, and so on and so forth.

I feel that the...