Julie Green

I do appreciate the Member's passion for helping his constituents, and I do appreciate that three of the four communities in his riding are not accessible by road. He started off by talking about his own community. I have to say that it's easier for his constituents to use the helpline to make a virtual appointment for counselling than to wait for Health and Social Services to fill empty positions in the community or to gather the resources together for a travelling team, so I really encourage him to contact me about the resources that are available right now that he can refer his constituents...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Member for Nunakput for his question. Mr. Speaker, we have a Community Counselling Program available in every community, who would be able to provide this service to residents. They would not have to wait for a travelling team. They could connect with the Community Counselling Program and arrange to either have a socially distanced appointment or a virtual appointment so that they could get the kind of help that the Member is talking about. Thank you.

As the Member may know, there is a helpline for seniors. Seniors could call there. They could call their local health centre. They could call the system navigator, health system navigator. I invite the Member to look that up and put it on her Facebook page. We, as a department, realize that people at different ages have different communication styles. We are fully aware that elders are generally not using computers and other digital methods of communication, so we have made an effort to communicate with them on local radio stations, through the newspaper, through posters, and even through door...

According to the NWT Bureau of Statistics, as of July 1, 2020, there are approximately 6,594 persons aged 60 and older in the NWT, and I will have to get back to the Member with the number who have received vaccines who are over 60.

I realize that there is no easy fix in this area. I don't believe that cultural competency training is optional in the Health and Social Services world. We have committed ourselves to providing culturally sensitive care, in part because of the case that the Member spoke about and other more recent cases that we have heard about on the news. We want to provide a service in which all people in the NWT, whether they are newcomers to the NWT or they have been here since time immemorial, feel comfortable accessing the services that they need to live their best lives. Thank you.

I'd like to think that everybody in our large healthcare facilities, and in our small ones, too, is a navigator who is there to help patients access the care that they come to the hospital or the healthcare centre for. We do have the quality assurance people, although they tend not to be standing in the foyer of the hospital, ready to give advice, but there are people who work at the front desk in the Inuvik Regional Hospital and at the Stanton Territorial Hospital who should be able to direct patients to the places they need to go and to direct them in the language of their choice. We have...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I take that as a comment.

Again, I thank the Member for Nunakput for bringing this forward. It has been a very difficult time. We know that. There have been many deaths, not because of COVID necessarily but just in the natural course of doing things, and because of the limitation on funerals, the grieving has not taken place in the way we are accustomed to. This has left people feeling at a loose ends. I cannot promise to bring resources to his community, but what I can say is that we will endeavour to fill that counselling position as soon as possible and that, in the meantime, there are phone and video resources...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following 10 documents: "Follow-up Letter for Oral Question 351-19(2): Addictions Treatment Services;" "Follow-up Letter for Oral Question 406-19(2): Truth and Reconciliation Commission Call to Action Regarding Treatment Centres;" "Follow-up Letter for Oral Question 407-19(2): Self-Isolation Exemptions;" "Follow-up Letter for Oral Question 414-19(2): Stanton Territorial Sterilization of Equipment;" "Follow-up Letter for Oral Question 415-19(2): Zoonotics;" "Follow-up Letter for Oral Question 427-19(2): Addictions, "Follow-up Letter for Oral Question...

I recognize that people are really feeling COVID fatigue in the dark and the cold and that they are really looking forward to getting together with other members of their communities and their families, both within the NWT and outside of the NWT, and so I think the Chief Public Health Officer is aware of that, too. Ultimately, the decision about what phase we are in is up to her. She is the one who we have tasked with the public health assessment, and so I cannot make a commitment. However, I can certainly tell you that she has set some thresholds for enabling more gathering in the NWT and for...