Sandy Lee

We are talking about I think two things here. On both counts we are doing a review. One, the Member is aware of the mental health and addictions review that we are undertaking as an entire mental health programming at the hospital as well as in communities. We acknowledge that there is room for improvement in that area and we have hired a study team, consulting team who have been here and talked to the stakeholders. We’re looking forward to having recommendations on that to improve our Mental Health and Addictions Program as a whole.

With respect to the psychiatric unit, every incident where...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That’s a pretty broad question. Being a facility that it is and the services it provides, there are any number of processes in place to review incidents and happenings at the hospital. If the Member wants to be more specific, I can try to address those.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. March is Nutrition Month in Canada. The national theme continues to be “Celebrate food...from the land to the table!” What we eat plays an important role in our health and well-being. The Department of Health and Social Services recognizes this through one of the goals in its action plan, A Foundation for Change. Communities, families and individuals make healthy choices and are protected from disease. This goal is achieved by promoting healthy living and wellness.

Mr. Speaker, last year we invested $74,000 through our Health Promotion Fund to help community groups and...

Thank you. Unless the Member has information otherwise, I do believe that the NWT society’s work on elder abuse workshops and conferences over the years has been from the funding from the Department of Health and Social Services and government. We are a close partner with the society in working on elder abuse. They’ve identified that financial abuse is the latest topic that they wanted to work on, and we put in some federal funding and our own funding to do a pan-territorial campaign on elder abuse, which has been quite successful. So, Mr. Speaker, we fund the NWT Seniors’ Society. We also...

Thank you. Because it’s about creating an entire bureaucracy to do something that is already being done by many, many departments in the government. If you look at the entire GNWT -- and the Member’s statement stated that already -- a large part of what we do in Health and Social Services is providing services to seniors and elders, whether it be hospital care, or long-term care, or home care, extra health benefits, a large part of Housing work is providing services to the elders. There are special programs for income support under ECE. Municipal Affairs even is doing Elders in Motion. So the...

As I indicated, I received this about two weeks ago. It’s under review and I will have to get back to the Member in due course. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Member stated, he was kind enough to give me a copy of that charter on February 13th, and it is under review. Thank you.

I was not given that request from the NWT Seniors’ Society. I don’t know if the society sent that information to the Member. I’m here ready to work with the NWT Seniors’ Society. I’ve not been given a chance to review those, so if the society has any information that they would like us to look into, we stand ready to look at their request. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Our staff meets regularly with seniors’ groups including the NWT Seniors’ Society. They have very good relationships with them. I was at the elders’ conference in December on elder abuse and I am not aware if they have formally submitted those proposals. They might have but I just don’t have that in front of me. When they do and if they have, we would review them, analyse them and respond to them. Thank you.

We are doing that right now so I’m not sure. A lot of people say, well, when are you going to do that? We are doing that as we speak. We are rolling out a program in Aklavik as we speak. That’s the transition between the Joe Greenland Centre and the program we are going to be offering. We are expanding the Home Care Program there. We want to deliver elders centre day programming there.

The Foundation for Change action plan includes expansion of home care but we need to find the resources to do that and that includes training and that includes having PYs set for home care. We are making that...