Sandy Lee

Mr. Speaker, the government and the Department of Health and Social Services take safety issues very seriously. We do public promotion, and we distribute vests, injury prevention measures. In cooperation with MACA and Transportation we distribute helmets for safety. In fact, we have distributed about 125 car seats. We have community health reps at the community level who work with parents to show them and teach them how to use their children’s car seats safely.

The way these are made…. It’s a modern machine and a lot more user-friendly than they used to be. I understand that there is a person...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As Minister of Health and Social Services and on behalf of the government I would just like to put it on record that the government supports this bill. We have indicated that support to the Member in other venues, and we make the commitment that we’ll work with the Member to make sure that the details are worked out and supported by the Department of Health as we move forward.

I believe I’ll be making a formal presentation at the consultation process in committee, but I just wanted to put that on the record.

The elder in question who was taken away was in need of intensive care. We did have him in the community with the family, but his needs were so high that he could not be taken care of there.

I do understand and appreciate the need for the community to keep their elders, especially in their last years. We want to be able to accommodate that as much as possible. But there are some seniors with acute needs that need to be taken care of, and those services are not available except in major centres.

My understanding in terms of 24-7 care for seniors is that in order for us to provide those services...

The CHRs have been distributing car seats to families. They have distributed 125 car seats all across the Territories. My information is that they know how those car seats work, and they teach the parents how they work. They are qualified to provide this. If there’s a need for Yellowknife, I am willing to look at helping Yellowknife social services authorities see if we could have similar programming.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t have it exactly here, but I understand the building was built by the NWT Housing Corporation in, I’d say, the last ten years or so.

As of now I don’t have enough information on the person or the condition or the nature of this drug or why it should not be approved. I just don’t have enough information. So I’m making the commitment to the Member that if he wishes to provide me with that information, I’d like to get more of the facts and see what the options are. Thank you.

I am guessing — maybe I shouldn’t guess, but I am assuming — that this patient is under…. Assuming there is some medication for the person’s condition, he would not be without treatment. The dispute is on a specific grant, or there are some experimental drugs that the patient may want to take, and governments across the country have not always approved and agreed to fund some of the medications that are on the market.

I don’t know that. I haven’t had communication from the Member on the latest one, as he was rejected on that. I do have to look to see and make sure that we are providing the...

I thought I stated earlier in the answer to the first question that the authorities who look after the staffing, the PYs and the service levels in Deh Cho, have told me — and I have talked to them following my meeting and my visits to Wrigley and other communities in Deh Cho — about the issues that were raised in the community, one of them being having more nursing services in Wrigley.

They told me then and they have told me lately that they believe that the nursing services in Wrigley are at or above the level they should be — for the size of the community, that is. Now, I understand that the...

There aren’t any reasons that I haven’t said already. I would like to just state that again that Wrigley is under the administrative oversight of the Dehcho Health and Social Services Authority. They allocate how their money and their PYs are divided among all of their eight communities, I believe, that they serve — or maybe even more. They feel that the services they are providing right now to Wrigley are actually more than what they provide for another community within their region of similar size, so there are no plans to put permanent nurses there at the moment.

I understand in the past...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to make sure everyone knows that the Department of Health and Social Services and myself as Minister take any infectious disease situation very seriously, as we do the latest outbreak of syphilis. It appears that there were a number of individuals with syphilis that were highly contagious at the time of contact.

The public health medical officer, chief medical health officer Dr. Corriveau, is using all of his authority and powers to assess the situation, identify who has this infectious disease and track all those that may have come into contact with it. We are...