Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we will provide our preliminary findings within two weeks.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there is clearly a medical diagnosis that is made. If there is an emergency medevac that comes in from a community, clearly that person, since they required a medevac and have some significant medical condition, would be given immediate attention over and above somebody that may have walked in because they forgot to get a prescription filled or have some much more minor complaint. So there already is that type of assessment process that is done by the medical staff at Stanton. It applies to all of the people that come in through the door to make sure...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, what I have done, as Members are aware, as the honourable Member is aware, as is the Member for Kam Lake, I took notes on the issues that were raised to me. Some of them are labour relations, some of them are health and safety issues, about a page. I went from their office down to my office and I got on the speaker phone with the deputy minister. I went through the issues with him and talked about those issues and get together the information that we have to, to be able to speak to those issues. We are starting to look at the response. Some of the issues...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we want the same thing and I believe we have a number of initiatives that are addressing that. The Member has asked for another basket of incentives over and above that. I have committed to try to identify that. If we have ways of reprofiling any of our dollars and if there are any other federal dollars that may come available, we will look at trying to access those. I do believe that community energy plans, minor hydro projects like they are looking at in Whati and Lutselk’e, are very important and will affect the man on the street, the person who lives...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have been working on the issue of wait times for some time now. We have added doctors. We are putting in a new OR system. We have added nurses. We are trying to get more OR nurses. We have in the plans a consolidated clinic in Yellowknife that is going to, we believe, take significant pressure off of the emergency ward in Stanton. When it is complete, it will allow access for the very many people inside and outside of Yellowknife that come to Yellowknife looking for services to be able to go into the clinic and get a lot of the basic testing and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member has an obligation to raise the issues with his constituents, and my responsibility as Minister is to look at that and make sure that we respond to circumstances and to issues in a very measured and careful way. We are doing that. I've committed to the Member for Range Lake that we would have an outline of how we intend to proceed to honour the commitment to have the staff consulted in a free and open environment where they could get full feedback, and we would provide the preliminary feedback that we are getting within two weeks. So it's within that time...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member raises a good point and I know that we can give the same incentive that B.C. does. For sure, the incentive will be we have no sales tax and that won’t be a burden on the purchase of the vehicle, the very same incentive that B.C. is giving. It would be one step that we could make. I would also like to point out that when it comes to energy savings, conservation and protecting the environment, in my opinion, part of the incentive should be that virtue should be its own reward in this case where you know you are doing the right thing for very...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I will give it to the Member before the start of the House tomorrow with information on each of those positions and the status of where they may be in the hiring process, recognizing that I know the importance of this. The Member is talking about this, and I will commit to do that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, when we did a review of all hospital facilities across the Northwest Territories, we worked with Dr. Peache and the medical association to look at do we have the appropriate mix of doctors, not only Stanton but in all the other health facilities that have doctors. As we were doing that, it quickly became clear that we also needed a similar kind of review done with the nursing complement as well in Inuvik, Yellowknife, Fort Smith, Hay River and Simpson. So that review is looking at all those particular facilities to make sure that the mix is right for the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will commit to providing the Member with the level of detail in regards to the staffing schedules for the emergency clinic. I would also like to point out that one of the intents of the consolidated clinic is to have a clinic that is open past five o’clock so that people that would normally have to go to emergency to get a very simple concern taken care of will now be able to go to a clinic and get that procedure done and not tie up the time in the emergency ward, which would be another way to shorten and alleviate the pressure of the emergency ward. Thank you.