Sandy Lee

Mr. Speaker, yes, I would ask them to publicly advertise and update the public as to where that program is. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Member for the question. The Member is right; we have had some delayed services in the Beaufort-Delta region due to a lack of contract; well, the provider. The Beaufort-Delta authority was able to sign the contract in August but the contractor was not able to begin work until November. There is a backlog list of patients that need to be seen. I will undertake to look at where we are with this and I hope to be able to report that they are going to begin delivering the services now that it is November. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, the Member sits on the Standing Committee on Social Programs. The way we fund money and extra resources is to work through that. I intend to come to the committee with the details of that. The focus is to help the families who need respite care not only in Yellowknife but across the communities. We need to look at this program comprehensively. I am willing to do that. I am committed to do that. We have, in fact, increased the money on respite care within the department budget. We do need to address the program with YACL, and I am committed to coming back to the committee with the...

The Member is right that we just approved $250,000 under a supp appropriation for ’10-11, because that’s how we do our budgeting. We approve one year at a time. The budget for ‘11-12 has not been before this House. Now, because we have gotten money, on a time-limited basis for THSSI and we found, like I said before, we pay for doctors, nurse practitioners and everything else, all of the authorities are working together to see how we transition and we exit out of some of this funding. So that’s under discussion and that hasn’t been before this House, Mr. Speaker. The authorities are working...

In the long run we will always need support of the families to take care of our elders and we’ll always have to rely on the families who look after children with disabilities and all kinds of family members who need assistance, which is why respite care is important to these families. It gives them a little bit of breathing room and helps them cope with the challenge of the extra responsibilities that they have. So I don’t think the government will ever be in a place where we could do 24-hour care for everybody.

We need to work together with the families. In cases of elders and persons with...

I have talked to the Member privately and I’ve responded to any parents that I’ve had a chance to talk to recently, and I say it again, that the Department of Health and Social Services considers the respite care program a very important service, and that I’ve stated in answering questions to the Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins, on Monday, that we have a resolution that we are working on. The important thing is that we work together to get the support that the families need. I intend to do that and the government intends to do that as well. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, we always do and we will. I would be happy to appear before the committee in December. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I stated, we have begun to have a respite care program outside of Yellowknife for the last three years. We are not in all of the communities yet. We have started in the Beaufort-Delta and Deline and I believe we have a couple of respite programs in Simpson. So we need to continue to work together to find respite care programming in communities across the Territories. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d also like to welcome everybody in the gallery and, in particular, I’d like to recognize my constituents from Range Lake: Camila Barros, Chelsey Adams and Kelly Handley. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, as the Member knows, we have busily rolled out the equipment into almost all communities in our Territories. We are training and we are introducing this new technology to staff and the residents because we need to get a buy-in from the people. I could assure the Member that we are evaluating the use of it. We are keeping track of data. I would be happy to share that with the Member in due course, hopefully three to six months after that equipment comes into use. Thank you.