Julie Green

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, locums are selfemployed basically. They come here on shortterm contracts, and they may come once, they may come on a schedule; there's no way to know. And on the employer end, they are used to fill gaps as necessary. So in some cases, we do see locums returning on a regular basis and, wherever possible, we encourage them to continue coming to the NWT to ensure that patient continuity that the Member was seeking of.

In addition, we maintain a locum talent pool list which is a list that we consult and call people from on an ongoing basis.

What we've seen...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it all starts with the relationship between the health provider and the patient. They would be able to recommend a range of health and social services that would assist with diagnosis, treatment, and support. For example, medications and medical supplies and equipment can be covered through the NIHB program for First Nations and Inuit residents and the Supplementary Health Benefits program for nonIndigenous residents. Home care services are available to residents in all communities, and Meals on Wheels in some communities. Rehabilitation services are...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you for the question. For the month of December, there will be 77 locum physicians providing services to the NWT. It sounds like a lot, but this is substantially lower than the average of 103 locums per month. In addition, as of October 31st the following casual locum staff working throughout the Northwest Territories Health and Social Services Authority: 11 community health nurses, one midwife, one nurse practitioner, one respiratory therapist, and 26 registered nurses. And to give some context to these numbers, as of June the 30th there were 338 frontline...

Yes, Mr. Speaker. I'll take that question on notice.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, aftercare is a huge priority for me. I spoke about it endlessly as a regular Member, and I continue that passion in this role now.

I'd just like to clarify that the Indian Residential counseling Service is not, in fact, cancelled. The service has been reduced so that facetoface counseling occurs less often, approximately every four to six weeks, and there are alternative ways t-to to obtain counseling between times using the phone and the internet and so on as constituent as residents are comfortable in and according to the technology that they have. Thank...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, to this point no Indigenous government or community organization has contacted me about this idea. Thank you.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am aware of similar requests for day shelter options in other communities, including in Hay River and in Inuvik and in Fort Simpson, but establishing this type of service in other communities would need to involve conversations with partners at the NWT Housing Corporation who are the lead on homelessness, taking as a startingpoint that most of these services are required by homeless individuals.

Should there be a way forward to establish additional day sheltering programs, there would be an opportunity to use what we've learned running the temporary...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, all the provinces and territories, including the NWT, submit data to the Canadian Chronic Disease Surveillance System, and the latest statistics for diabetes were published in 2020. The information is broken down by demographics such as age, sex, ethnicity, and community type. And "community type" includes Yellowknife regional centres and small communities. And earlier today I provided the Member with the number of diabetics who live in his community.

The data gathered by the Canadian Chronic Disease Surveillance System is further broken down into a...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I said, this kind of tracking is important to us so that we have a full understanding of how long it is taking to meet people's needs for services in these areas. There are some limitations, as the Member referenced, to our electronic medical records system at this time. It's going to be retired in the 20232024 period, and it's going to be replaced with something that is going to be superduper, I hope. And it's going to be able to have an online patient portal. It's going to have all kinds of different ways to report things such as those that the...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. The purpose of the Integrated Care Teams is to allow for greater access and continuity of care and delivery to patients. So the model places the patient and the family at the center of care and then it allows primary care teams to bring in other service providers to provide an integrated spectrum of services to the patient and/or their family. So the idea here is to break down these silos of care and to bring them together into one team. So it is important to know, however, at this point, per the Member's statement, that the Integrated Care Teams are separate from...