Statements in Debates
The program change at Joe Greenland Centre is to use the facility for what it was really meant to be. It was not designed for level III and IV care that we’ve delivered there for the last number of years. Since 2007 we’ve had very few residents there.
When this wing is renovated and converted into independent units, we don’t anticipate that we will have staff in that building. It will be like the other wing. There will be a caretaker and that sort of support.
What we anticipate is to expand the Elders Program for the entire community. Right now for the entire community of Aklavik there’s one...
We have, I believe, 62 positions dealing with mental health and addictions already. There is underground support for that work. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Graduate Placement Program is being delivered by HR on our behalf and we work with HR to address the issues that the Member is speaking about. When the nurses graduate from the college program, they need additional on-the-job training and often they work in Stanton because they do want to have some emergency and hospital setting so they become more comprehensively trained and be ready to go out to communities, because a community health nurse needs a different set of skills that they might learn; well, additional skills than what they learn in the school setting and...
Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the Member’s comments on that. This initiative is part of our Building Our Future Strategic Initiative Committee project and Ministers across departments and deputy ministers sit in this group. I will undertake to follow up on that evaluation suggestion and follow up with the Member on that.
I just want to add one more note about this Small Community Homelessness Funding. I take the Member’s point, but just going back to the history, those programs were set up precisely to address the needs of small communities that didn’t have shelters. I understand...
The Member knows that the Department of Health and Social Services is not in the business of building houses, so we would not be involved in that. The Member also knows because she had asked in the past and I’ve given her information about the kind of support we provide for persons with disabilities. We have various programs. The Member mentioned an assisted living complex in Hay River, but we also have group homes, we have supported living, we provide respite care. I mean, the persons with disabilities don’t come in one shape and size and need, and so individuals are assessed and they are...
Just on the first two points, the Member is right that we had as part of the business plan that we would like to have five children and family services committees set up, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that we will put resources or that dollars are attached to that. The business plan is a plan. It’s what we want to do as a department. There are dollars allocated but there are lots of other policy framework and directives that we lay out there.
The second thing is, yes, I agree with the Member that flexible approach is desired and that is what we have been doing. The director of our child and...
Well, nothing stops us from doing that other than the fact that there is no real, I don’t think… I mean, the phone lines we’ve tried, like the Health Line, per cost basis it wasn’t the most effective service because our people still want to have face-to-face counselling. People don’t even like calling the RCMP on a phone line. Our people would like to have care providers face to face.
My point is we have those services available in communities for people to go to for their treatment options or aftercare or anything like that. I don’t think there’s anything stopping us. It’s one option, but it...
I do appreciate the Member’s questions and I do appreciate that these are of concern to us. I am a little concerned that what we are talking about here may go into clinical decisions that our health care professionals make by whatever knowledge they have or the legislation or policy, so this is a very complex issue. I think the better thing for me to do is just to undertake to get the information for the Members and provide them with the information.
I do want to say that they are governed by legislation, so we need to get to those. I do share the Member’s concerns about improving what we are...
I might have to ask my staff here to get me the details, but we run the Small Community Shelter Program, that is for $250,000 and then we have another program under a different name where we help our people to be relocated or go back to communities they came from sometimes. That is a separate funding for $200,000, but I need to revisit the name of that program. These are the two that I can think of right now, other than O and M funding support that we provide to lots of different NGOs.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We’ve discussed this and we commit that I am giving it full consideration and I will be communicating with the committee. Thank you.