Sandy Lee

The Member is aware that the Beaufort-Delta Health and Social Services Authority uses every dollar they have to provide those services. Vacant positions don’t mean they have money set aside sitting in the bank. Vacant positions, in fact, mean more expenditures are required because they do fill those positions with locums and casuals. Mr. Speaker, the allotment for Tsiigehtchic, for example, are being used to provide nurse coverage because they do get nursing coverage for about half of the year, which is equivalent or better than what communities that size receive in other parts of the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is correct in saying that we have been working under the Foundation for Change to enhance our goals. The goals under Foundation for Change are: wellness, accessibility and sustainability. So we are working on that three-year plan that would change the way we deliver our programs in the North and to strengthen services at the community level, but as a Territory-wide plan to use our resources as efficiently as possible and change the way we provide services. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Currently we have four dedicated nurses in Simpson that services Wrigley, Nahanni Butte, Trout Lake and Jean Marie River. Yes, we have a proposal that would enhance nursing coverage in Wrigley and those three communities in 2010. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the Member for the question. The urgency to make this capital investment at this time is because we need this money to replace the laboratory information system. We are responding to the vendor, General Electric, who has given us notice that they would discontinue supporting this system and gave us two short extensions until November of this year, I believe, or support as of December 2, 2009. So we need to make sure that we have a system in place that’s reliable, because this is essential to our lab service. It deals with reading and connecting all the lab...

I’m not sure if I understand the question. I’d like to give our public a lot more credit than what the Member is suggesting. I think if you see the material on the website, it’s quite plainly written. There will be a facilitator at the meeting that will present the facts. We’re not going to tell people to interpret. We will present the facts and then engage in a dialogue, very much like what we did with the standing committee and very much like what we did, I believe, with the public working group. You lay out the facts and then ask the people for their input. The facts are important, because...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member has been here for 14 years, and he asked exactly the same question, and he understands the challenges we face and the challenges I face as the Minister of Health. This government is more daunting than we’ve ever had before. We have demographics that are changing; needs are changing. We have increased our budget by a large percentage, but our boards are struggling to provide all the services that they need. All indicators are showing that we, by far, are doing better than any other place for this kind of remoteness and this kind of size and the challenges we...

Every effort is being made to make sure that we provide a good health care coverage to everyone in the Territories. The community of Tsiigehtchic is getting better service than any other community that size in the Northwest Territories.

That Member is looking at the material that the committee received. Our discussion was that the data shows that we need to consider those as a policy direction. We’re not going out to say we should do this or we should do that. Copayment is a possible option, but the data or grandfathering or anything else, that’s a transition measure or where do we go next that we should consider. I think Members should take that when we say that we are consulting with the public. In order for the public to respond to us, we need to present them with some hard facts about what is the cost of extended health...

I think it’s important to note that working group was part of the discussion process, but they weren’t meant to be the exclusive or the only group of consultation. Since our last experience, we’ve discussed with the committee about how to improve on things. We’ve had a few meetings on that. Departmental officials have met with health providers, the authorities. I have discussed it with the chairs of the boards. We’ve met with the NWT Seniors’ Society. They’ve invited me a couple of times and we’ve had discussions on that. So I think it’s important to note the public advisory group was part of...

As I’ve indicated, the deputy minister will be participating in that board and any proposals they may have for raising money for capital, obviously we’re willing to work with that and see how we can work together. I think we should be careful that raising money for capital equipment is for capital equipment. Often it’s the O and M and the ongoing funding that is a lot bigger than the capital funding itself. We should be mindful of that when we are talking about fundraising projects. Obviously, I appreciate and value the work that the foundation does and any idea they may have that they want us...