Norman Yakeleya

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First I want to offer my condolences from the Sahtu region to the young man’s family up in Inuvik. We certainly offer our prayers to that family. Also to another resident of the Sahtu that passed away last night, Mark Collier from Norman Wells. We offer our condolences to the whole family in Norman Wells.

I talked with the elders a couple of days ago. I want to thank my colleagues for allowing me to take a couple of days off to attend the funeral in Fort Good Hope. The elders talked to me and said we need to take some time to help one another. That’s the way of our...

Is there any sense the Minister has in regard to some of the patients… Sometimes they are released, and even they know that they are released a little too early, and they just need to stay an extra week or two for the recovery. Sometimes they do not speak up and they are released back to the communities, knowing that it’s not quite right.

Is there any sense that the Minister can assure me and the people of the Sahtu that they have the right, if they would insist that they stay an extra week or two at the hospital, to make sure that their recovery is well in good terms?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services if there is a policy on patients who get or receive surgery at the Stanton Hospital. Is there a policy that they have to stay there so long, and then they have to leave the hospital back to their hometowns? I’m not too sure what that policy is called, but is there a policy in place?

The patients that I spoke to have gone to the health centre. Is there someone in the front that has enough information to say you have the right to ask for an examination, other than the nurse looking at you saying don’t come back or here’s some aspirin, come back the next day or come back when the doctor is in the community, which could be six weeks to three months? Our people won’t ask. You have to tell them they have the right to be examined and get a second opinion, if possible, and not to be asked to take some pills and go home.

What kind of policy encourages our people in the small...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services what the health centre’s policy is when a patient or client comes into the health centre and want to see a nurse. What is the policy? Is the nurse supposed to take them into the examination room and work with them or chase them away?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The people I spoke to about the surgeries in the Stanton Hospital were very concerned because there were a number of incidents that indicated that these patients left the hospital a little too early and their recovery wasn’t quite healing up, or somewhere along the line it brought them back to Stanton. It cost a lot of money and it caused a lot of heartache.

I want to ask the Minister, within Stanton I’m speaking about, when people have these surgeries that they are fully informed when the doctor is going to release them. However, they have the right, also, to say we...

Thanks for the clarification from the Minister. I’ve been told, when I went to Fort Good Hope, that there are several patients from the Sahtu that had surgery in Yellowknife’s Stanton Hospital and they were released based on the clinical decision by the doctor of when they came back to their home communities. Because of the operation and because of the sensitivity of it, they were released a little too early and then they had to come back to the Stanton Hospital for some more medication and recovery.

I want to ask the Minister what assurance he can give me that these patients, once they leave...

I would like it if the Minister would come to the Sahtu and come to Deline and explain this process here as simply as possible to the people in Deline on this issue here. They still feel that they are being double-dipped by the Housing Corporation and that that’s not fair.

I’ll ask the Minister if he would make a commitment to come to Deline and explain this process to the people in Deline.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I talked in my Member’s statement about the calculation of income on rents and I want to ask the Minister here, probably for people who are in public housing who get the rent assessment, and they go through the calculations of income to pay the rent, and they pay CPP and EI when they’re working, and when they’re not working they also ask for their income and they also get calculated on their EI. Some of the people are saying that Housing is double-dipping into the rental income. I want to ask the Minister if that’s true.

Mr. Speaker, I MOVE, seconded by the honourable Member for Thebacha, that, notwithstanding Rule 4, when this House adjourns on October 25, 2012, it shall be adjourned until Monday, October 29, 2012;

AND FURTHER, that any time prior to October 29, 2012, if the Speaker is satisfied, after consultation with the Executive Council and the Members of the Legislative Assembly, that the public interest requires that the House should meet at an earlier time during the adjournment, the Speaker may give notice and thereupon the House shall meet at the time stated in such notice and shall transact its...