Julie Green

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member has been consistently critical of the services in his community, and we have paid attention to that. There is staff turnover in his community at this time. There are two nurse vacancies that will probably not be filled right away because nurses are in very short supply. Complaints about staff conduct have been relayed to the Nurses Association and to the GNWT. The Health Authority Management went to meet with staff in the community in April to understand their concerns. There was an audit conducted of programing within the health centre on...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I look forward to having this program in place for the benefit of people throughout the NWT but particularly those who are travelling from remote locations. Thank you.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I know the Member would like to hear "tomorrow", but the fact is this is a brand new program with brand new positions, and so the department is developing that program and job descriptions and so on. And those will be part of the next business planning process, although the money is already dedicated to the positions. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I can't imagine really what it would be like to come in from Ulukhaktok and have to go through to Edmonton for an appointment. The culture change would be very extreme.

I'm not aware of the issue that the Member is speaking of, a number of cancelled appointments and the need to rebook them. So I will commit to finding out more about that and responding to him. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I recognize that medical travel can be a stressful time for the patients themselves and for their family members as well. What we did agree to in the budget negotiations is a patient navigator for each region of the NWT.

And so it's my expectation that when we're creating the job description for this new position, that it will include travel navigation and have special attention on people who are doing medical travel. Thank you.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, next Thursday evening at 7:00 p.m., the Chief Public Health Officer, myself, the Premier and others will be giving a briefing on the Emerging Wisely Plan to the Regular Members. And I invite the Member for Yellowknife North to ask his question at that time so the CPHO can give him a welldefined answer. Thank you.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Since the pandemic began, the COVID Secretariat and NTHSSA have created videos, social media material, news releases, FAQs, a range of different kinds of documents that are available on the GNWT COVID19 site. It covers things like selfisolation, testing, vaccination, and so on.

So I wonder if some of the things the Member is looking for is already in place. I'm not familiar with the World Health Organization material.

What we do know is that in the course of the pandemic, information has changed. We've learned so much more, for example, about variants and how...

Yes, thank you. These two branches are not in silos. They do speak to one another. The work they're doing is connected.

The perceived lack of consistency is actually because not everyone got the same advice about how long to isolate or how many tests they needed and so on. I found that there's been some confusion between the general advice given to the public and the specific advice given to individuals. And there's been a mixup of those two, and the result is that it looks confusing. And I understand that people did experience it as confusing.

And so I think that there are lessons to be...

Yes, thank you. The Member is correct, that there is one counsellor resident in the community and one child and youth care counsellor. These services are available to the public regardless of what their need is, what their age is, where they were born.

And I know that the community counsellor provides the Matrix Program, which is a form of aftercare, and he does that every Wednesday from 4:30 until 6:00, and I understand it's very well attended.

So by all means, I would encourage the Member to make that known to the people who have recently returned to the community. Thank you.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I certainly will make sure that the CPHO hears that suggestion. And, of course, we appreciate the fact that people would like to get to Whitehorse and go shopping, pick up their vehicles and so on. And we look forward to making that happen as soon as possible. Thank you.