Julie Green

Yes, thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, I have all kind of good news for the Member from Frame Lake.

The standards for longterm care were released on January 31st by the health standards organization. And what's very important to know about these standards is, not only there are lots of them, but they really are aimed at ensuring the comfort, safety, and dignity of seniors who are in longterm care.

I'd like to say that developing the standards was a collaborative process. It involved the Department of Health and Social Services from the GNWT at a government advisory table. There were...

Yes, thank you. This morning the Premier, the Finance Minister, and I met with our federal colleagues, the Minister for intergovernmental affairs and the Minister of health. We had some questions about what we had been offered at the the Premier had been offered at the Council of Federation last week.

What I can tell you is that the net new money available to the NWT is $12 million. That includes a $2.9 million increase to the territorial health initiative fund which is spent partly on medical travel and partly on bigger picture items like health sustainability.

There are four areas in which...

The Member for Frame Lake can rest assured this is not a new way of communicating. I've already explained that the federal government is doing its own communications. We don't have any control over that. I've told him what we're doing. And, you know, that is what we are going to stick with. I think I already said, but I will say again, I wasn't best pleased either to read on Cabin Radio that coming out of that meeting, apparently somebody had Minister Duclos had done an interview with Cabin Radio about the health agreement. We didn't have a specific embargo in place, so we have to go with the...

Yes, thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, I can't control who the federal ministers decide to talk to in media interviews. I didn't know that they were going to do that. I learned when the Member learned, and I was probably just about as happy. Thank you.

Yes, thank you. Just to say again we met with these Ministers this morning. They choose to do their own media engagement. We decided to do ours tomorrow. We have in the works a message to Regular MLAs. We have provided them with advanced notice of a media release or a media advisory. There will be advanced notice of a media release. So we are not working as quickly as the federal government is but we are prepared to answer any questions that may arise, whether it today or tomorrow after the news conference. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, people who are currently receiving support for their specified conditions will continue to receive that support. The change here is that the program proposal that was in the discussion paper is to have income testing in order to figure out what level of support the person themselves might be able to afford towards the total cost. We use income testing for everything. You need income testing for income assistance. You need income testing for housing. You need income testing for the seniors fuel subsidy. We're looking at income testing. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to start by thanking the 729 people who provided input into the public engagement process on the supplementary health benefits. That feedback was aggregated into themes and released as a report on January the 23rd. Using the information gathered, the departmental staff are writing a new policy. In fact, we didn't consult on a policy. We consulted on an issue. So they are writing a new policy, and it will go through the standard process of being presented to Cabinet and to the Regular Members, the Standing Committee on Social Development. So that...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I can't make that commitment to go over each patient's file and determine whether they were appropriately diagnosed. Audits generally are samples. They don't look at every single file. If somebody has a specific complaint about the way they were treated, concerns about the way they were treated, that they feel they were misdiagnosed, this is what the office of client experience is for as well as our other quality assurance processes. It's there to make sure that patients have a venue in which to make their concerns known and, more importantly in some...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have only highlevel information in this area. I can't answer that question. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased to recognize the staff of the newly created Office of Client Experience that will provide support services to NWT residents navigating the health and social services system. With us today is

Fraser Lennie. Fraser is the director and program supervisor for the new office. He is a Metis Sahtu beneficiary and lives in Yellowknife. Welcome.

Glenna Simon. Glenna is the senior Indigenous patient advocate for Fort Smith. Glenna is First Nations and Cree, and she works out of the health centre in Fort Smith.

Denise Ritias is the senior Indigenous patient...