Sandy Lee

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First of all, I’d like to thank the Member for the positive statements he made with regard to this important project. It is an important initiative for our health and social services system, because the Yellowknife primary clinic services not just Yellowknife residents but residents from surrounding communities.

I agree with the Member that the facility is going through, and has gone through, some growing pains, and I agree with him that we need to be able to give that feedback. What I’m going to suggest to the Member is, I’m going to ask the authority and the management...

What we need from the Member and this House is continued strong support for the government to implement the recommendations that were made by the Joint Working Group. We’re going to need some really strong fortitude to implement the third-party use and encouraging people to get third-party insurance where they can afford to. We need to find some equity and parity between NIHB programs and Supp Health Programs. We are going to need to be strong to implement some of the changes to the pharmaceutical strategy so that we would encourage the use of generic drugs. All those things will require...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I stated in my statement yesterday, we will be working hard on a number of fronts as per recommendations of the Supp Health Joint Working Group. That includes encouraging employers to provide employment insurance or employers insurance, encouraging our residents to get private insurance where it’s possible, and to look at some savings through use of generic drugs. The department will be pursuing all those three options, and we will be doing some cost-benefit analysis and looking at ways to see how we can help those who are not without health care coverage or health...

The working poor and the excluded coverage that the Member is talking about, we are talking about those who don’t have dental or vision care coverage, because they would get health care and drug coverage and such from the regular health care coverage we have. At this time we could only guess how many numbers there are. We believe there are about 2,000 people in the Territories without employer coverage that gives them dental and vision care. We cover $1,000 for seniors for dental and $250 for glasses every two years. So that’s the cost we’d be looking at if we were to cover them immediately.

I believe the incremental increase for that budget has been somewhere between 6 to 8 percent over the last number of years. Thank you.

We do have a dichotomy of our residents going down to the Primary Care Centre and they’re concerned that they have to wait for half an hour on the phone for an appointment, whereas in many of our communities we have people who have to wait for days and if they miss a doctor’s appointment, it’s weeks.

So, Mr. Speaker, when Action Canada, the research tank, was up here, when they looked at the fact that we are delivering health care to 40,000 people in 33 communities over a land mass that’s four times bigger than France, he just said that is a challenge. Medical travel, medical technology and...

Thank you. The Member is absolutely right in what he’s saying and this is why our work in the department has been in creating a territorial team where doctors, nurses, everybody is working as a team to make their services available to everyone in the Territories, especially the small communities. The Member is right when he says that a lot of our communities, actually over 25 of them have to wait for doctors, eye doctors, specialists, and nurses even come two or three times a week, they’re not there permanently. So we are working and medical directors and all the nursing professions are coming...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I agree with the Member that the automatic door situation was really unfortunate. As soon as that was made apparent to us, DPW and Department of Health and Social Services and YPCC worked immediately to rectify that.

To answer the naming of it, the authority did have public consultation and the board decided that they would like to stay with the Yellowknife name because that’s what even the communities outside of Yellowknife recognize the facility to be. Mr. Speaker, I... Oh. System off line. I will talk to the authority about a possible name change to reflect the...

The steps are being taken and have been taken to address that issue. The phone system they installed at the clinic is quite sophisticated, but we have been running into some trouble. The authority has been working with the provider and the main person from the headquarters. They have been meeting. It’s a sophisticated system that’s able to evaluate and take all of the numbers of the calls being made, how long people are waiting for and how they can improve. As the Member knows, because we have met with the authority, they’re observing all of that and will be analyzing that and I expect to get...

Enhancing home care service and community support is one of the goals of the department. We appreciate that extra resources are needed to expand those services, but for now we deliver those services with the staff and resources we have in the communities. Thank you.