Norman Yakeleya

Can the Minister commit to meeting the people of Deline and the people of the Sahtu, once the report has been completed, that there will be some specific discussions for the community of Deline on their request to have palliative care services? Is that something that we could look at working on, on a going forward basis, because the capital infrastructure budget will be coming up shortly after that.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My Member’s statement is on the ongoing requests of the people, especially the family members of the elders. They have been asking for a palliative care service in Deline.

There are 54 elders 60 years and over in Deline. People have asked since last year when the letter was written to the previous Minister, Tom Beaulieu, when he visited the community. Upon his visit there, people wrote a letter and asked if there could be a possibility of putting two palliative care beds in the existing community wellness building.

People have noticed that since 1994, when the facility...

When patients are sent to Edmonton, and in regard to this patient from Tulita, are our patients given a phone number, a contact person in Edmonton where sometimes it might be out of the Medical Travel Policy but they’re down there for, like, this instance, which is unique? Are they given some type of support down there? Because this person went through her surgery, and after surgery there was no assistance and no support for her. She basically was on her own, and she had to fight medical travel to get her ticket paid back to Norman Wells. That’s not even getting her back to Tulita. Her husband...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services on medical travel. I spoke earlier about the incident with the person from Tulita on her experience with the Medical Travel Policy. This is only one incident of probably many across the Northwest Territories and from the smaller communities.

Can the Minister tell me how soon the Medical Travel Policy revision will be before the House so we can have some good discussion and have this type of incident be looked at with the revisions of the new Medical Travel Policy? Thank you.

Thank you. I appreciate that from the Minister, to look into this specific case here, and again, looking forward to the type of new policies that are going to be put in place and have in our discussions. For example, patients come to the Wells to Yellowknife and then they find that there is a cheaper way to get back to their community. They make a suggestion and medical travel say no, you have to go back on this type of route there, so there is some uniqueness to our situations in our small communities.

I want to ask the Minister, does he foresee that this medical travel will be put in place...

As part of this Medical Travel Policy revision, I want to ask the Minister, would he commit to talking to this person or have the department talk to this person on her experience after surgery and what type of frustration she had to undergo and the agonizing speaking to medical travel to get her back? That’s not even getting her back to Tulita. She had to get her own way back from Norman Wells to Tulita, and this is only one of many incidents.

Is there a place where people that go through this type of experience can say this is what’s happening now with the Medical Travel Policy today? This is...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. The Northwest Territories Medical Travel Policy needs a major revamping and overhauling and hopefully it will be done within this Assembly.

There are many stories on medical travel from our small communities, on the medical escorts, to the medical travel, to appointments either here in Yellowknife or in Edmonton. For example, a medical travel appointment was scheduled in Edmonton; however, there was an unexpected illness with one of the relatives in Edmonton, so this medical travel client of Tulita flew down to Edmonton to be with her sister, who was on life support...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I heard on this side that we could be very creative on this initiative as to filling these 400 vacant positions, the active positions. I’m going to make the assumption that the 400 inactive, what does inactive, meaning these 400 positions to fill, and we can embark on that, and as I said, like some of our colleagues, but let’s start training up people in our own communities, start upgrading them. Maybe that’s the bigger picture.

I want to ask the Minister, when will the Cabinet come over to our side and say let’s sit down, let’s figure out how we can resolve this. Right...

I know there’s probably a little more complexity on the answers, but 800 positions that the government has right now, there are 400 they’re actively trying to fill. So the other 400, what happens? There’s active and inactive. Is that correct and can the Minister also put a financial figure to those positions that are vacant?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I’ve listened to the Finance Minister and went through the budget address and looked at some of the highlights, I was quite pleased with some of the initiatives happening in the Northwest Territories, certainly the long-held dream of Cece McCauley in Norman Wells on the Mackenzie Valley Highway and the work towards that, and the government is responding to the oil and gas activity in the Sahtu and other areas around the Northwest Territories that the government is responding with the fiscal restraint that we’re operating under. Of course, the new day for us will be...