Julie Green

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the Honourable Member for Range Lake, that Bill 40, an Act to Amend the Medical Profession Act, be read for the second time.

This bill amends the Medical Profession Act to allow a medical practitioner regulated in another province or territory to provide virtual care to patients in the Northwest Territories from a location outside the Northwest Territories. This may happen in the following ways:

An outofterritory practitioner may apply for registration in the virtual care register and be issued a virtual care permit;

An outofterritory...

Well, we  as mentioned earlier, we have made a $5 million contribution to the Avens pavilion in the form of constructing  providing money to construct their new kitchen and laundry facilities. So we're involved in that way. I don't think that we have other housing projects that  that we're directly involved with as the housing provider but more, as I say, what we're  what we're doing is  is helping people to stay in their homes with personal support worker and nursing services. Thank you.

Yes, thank you. The projected total for the one in Deline, for example, is $600,000.

Yes, thank you. I understand that there's a health system human resources plan that's being finalized and my colleague, the Minister responsible for Human Resources has spoken about this, and the results of the surveys that I've spoken of will inform actions to improve the recruitment and retention of health care staff. I will in fact, share with the Standing Committee on Social Development the plan when it's complete and the summaries of the surveys when they're available. Thank you.

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair, and I thank the Member for inviting myself and others to tour his riding in July. And one morning I walked down the main street in Sachs Harbour and visited a couple of elders in their homes, and they were very clear with me that they had no interest in leaving their community, and they had no interest in leaving their homes. And so then the issue is how to support them in their homes, and home care is the way to do that.

It seems to me that what was needed there more than anything was housing for seniors as opposed to longterm care. So last spring  feels about nine...

Yes, thank you. The biomedical evergreening is things like mammography and xray machines, ventilators, anesthesia machines, patient monitoring machines, the ones that you see in hospital rooms, lab analyzers, and those  whenever you think of machinery in a health context, that's what  that's the equipment we're talking about evergreening. And so I don't have a breakdown by community. The equipment exists in different communities to different extents depending on whether they have hospital, they have a health centre, or whether they have a health cabin. But if you want a specific breakdown for...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it's my understanding that they took the information and made a communications plan to address the areas of weakness that were identified. As a result of that, they have biweekly allstaff updates; they have improved the use of internal communication platforms; they have promoted the use of internal feedback tools to receive questions and information from staff. I know there is sort of a suggestion box function now that people can use anonymously to point out issues and concerns. And it's my understanding that in fact these tools are heavily used, and...

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for the question. I don't think there are any plans to demolish that building. I think it's called the Commissioner's building. There are no plans to demolish that. It is holding files that go back to the founding of Hay River, medical files that go back to that point.

We, in the department, have a significant storage issue with old medical files, and what we need is the budget to have a dedicated team to start sorting through these files and deciding what to do with them. Some of them may be disposed of, some of them may be digitized. Some of them may...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm not going to make that commitment. I'm going to assure the Member that I think we all have the best interests of these families in mind. It's very unfortunate that the staffing situation is such that Stanton is not going to be available for births between December the 10th and February the 21st, and I recognize the disruption that's going to cause. But I'm not going to task the obstetrics team with writing reports for us. That, I do not think is a good use of their time.

The ultimate answer to this is to try and improve our staffing levels in the obstetrics unit...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, medical travel benefits are available to these families who are being disrupted by the closure of the obstetrics unit at the same rates that are provided to everybody else who travels for medical travel. In the event that the family has access to employer benefits, noninsured health benefits, or extended health benefits, Metis health benefits, then they may be able to supplement those numbers. In the event that they are unable to supplement those numbers, they should certainly make the obstetrics team aware of that so that we can consider what else may...