Tom Beaulieu

Certainly, we will have a discussion with the dental contractors to provide more days. It would cost the system more money to provide more days. So if what we’re finding is we know the exact amount of days a dentist goes into each community, so we would check to see the utilization of that time that they’re in. An example would be if they spend 43 days in Fort Liard in 2010-11 and 42 days in 2013-14. So there would be no increase, so my assumption would be they weren’t having full utilized days while they were in there. But I will check that and if they are fully utilizing all their days and...

We did not receive any letter opposing this from any resident or health care profession of the Northwest Territories.

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Health and Social Services recognizes that poor oral health is costly to our health system and that poor oral health leads to all kinds of other problems that negatively impact students in schools. So what we are doing in the big picture overall is developing an oral health strategy, working with the two northern jurisdictions, Yukon and Nunavut, to develop an oral health strategy.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We did not receive opposition. We received an e-mail of support from them.

As the Member knows, we’ve recently moved the CEO to a position with Health and Social Services. We have an acting CEO and then there’s going to be a new CEO for Hay River coming on stream within weeks. I’ve had that discussion with all of the Joint Senior Management Committee – that’s all of the CEOs across all of the jurisdictions and some senior staff with Health and Social Services – and made it a priority. One of the top three priorities for the health system is recruitment of doctors.

Plan A for the recruitment of doctors would be to recruit doctors in the communities where they will be...

I suppose that possibility could occur.

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. Yes, the thought is to return to a board structure for the Hay River Health and Social Services Authority. As the Member knows, we are in the process of constructing a new health centre and we’re hoping to be able to provide some medical services to surrounding communities. So once we’ve determined the full scope of what that specific health centre can provide to the surrounding areas, then we are going to talk more with the staff and the public administrator to determine what type of board structure we should have in place for Hay River Health and Social Services...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To my right I have Thomas Druyan, legislative council, and to my left, Gillian Burles, senior policy advisor, legislation.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to introduce Bill 21, An Act to Amend the Dental Profession Act.

This bill will amend the Dental Profession Act to make the supervision of dental students more practical for the NWT. It is our hope that dental students who take advantage of the opportunity to work for a term in a northern community will return upon completing their dental degree.

We also made minor changes to the act such as changing the term of “secretary” to that of “registrar.” This amendment will also allow the Minister to appoint a registrar who will be responsible for registering all...

Thank you. Unfortunately, I do not have the exact date of when we are going to make changes to the Medical Travel Policy. We have someone currently working on it. I don’t know of the timelines, but I am prepared and willing to provide that information to the Members as soon as I can. Before the end of session I can provide the timelines. Thank you.