Rylund Johnson

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. I appreciate her informing this House previously that we have a 26.3 percent vacancy rate in nursing positions and this is a 10 percent increase since 2020. However I was hoping the Minister could help me quantify what that means at Stanton specifically where the OBS unit has closed. Can the Minister tell us currently how many positions are funded at Stanton Territorial Hospital, and how many of them are not actually filled. Thank you. Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I know the territory spends  I believe it's upwards of $20 million on outofterritory services, and we have many residents with kinds of very complex needs and longterm care in Alberta. Can the Minister just speak to whether any of these longterm care beds would be able to repatriate those people. I know some have complex needs and services beyond what we're planning to build here, but I'm just wondering if any of these additional beds will bring people home from Alberta. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to echo some of the comments made by my colleague from Kam Lake of the importance of fibre redundancy. Even before COVID, we all know the world was quickly moving online but I think, as we have seen with any emergency, access to the internet is essential for communication and the continued efforts of essential services.

Mr. Speaker, right now if there's a forest fire or some idiot shoots the fibre line, we run out of internet. The creation of a fibre redundancy loop allows us, and the communities around the lake, to have a secondary point of access. As already...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I  you know, committee has reviewed the longterm care strategy and the work, and there's been some various needs assessments. But I guess there's 136 beds here in the capital budget. Do we have a rough estimate of what that then costs to operate in the O and M budget, or can the Minister just speak to some of the O and M costing that each of these beds puts on the budget. Thank you.

Lastly, Madam Chair, I know we have either purchased or rented or using the Tlicho allseason construction room as a temporary day shelter, which my understanding is intended to run until this one is complete. Can I just get clarification whether that money is found in the capital budget or the O and M budget or whether that's coming forward through a sup. Thank you.

Not planning to move to Hay River any time soon, Madam Chair.

I know there is endless debates about day shelters. Can I just get clarification that the site has been selected, the one beside  I'm going to call it beside St. John Ambulance, across from True Value. Is that the site that has been selected. Is that a finalized decision. Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm going to sneak in one more; that may be pushing the limits here. I know we have a number of software operating but we still tend to fax records. This has caused a lot of problems. Are we going to end faxing? Do we anticipate any of the software we're buying or planning to buy will end that practice. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I  guess just a comment. I think there's probably  I recognize we have to let communities make their decisions on their infrastructure. There's some complication there in that a lot of that infrastructure we sometimes become ultimately responsible for. I also think that  I mean, it's not  the GNWT's not really in a position to tell people not to build a bunch of infrastructure you can't afford to maintain. But I think there's probably some very large policy work to be done to assess all of the community infrastructure, all of the GNWT infrastructure, and have a...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm looking at about three and a half million dollars of various medical I really have no concern with what's presented here. My question is it was my understanding that we were looking to replace our electronic medical records system, and I believe that was quite a costly endeavor, and I don't see that here. Can the Minister just give an update as to what is going on with that process. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I guess I'll lead into what the Minister said there. I recognize that there's some disagreement about portions of the gap. You know, if a community pulls in a bunch of federal infrastructure money, that doesn't get factored into the formula. There's different ways to calculate needs and I'll note some communities have probably built far too much water and sewer lines for the size of them and some are on trucked water, and there's obviously a lot of engineering analysis that goes into assessing that. But can the Minister speak to when we expect to have a new formula...