Tom Beaulieu

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do have some information here; I’ll just pull the information out. I have some of the timelines and I do believe that we’re now prepared to go into a planning study. The planning study for the replacement of the Fort Simpson Health and Social Services Centre is in progress. In the planning study for the health centre in Simpson, we’ll make recommendations for the facility and program renewal. The department is working with Public Works and the Deh Cho Health and Social Services on the study plan now. The study plan is complex and will take several months to complete...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The information and our discussions with Avens have been this year. I think that in response to Ms. Bisaro, we’re not going to take Avens and move it up ahead of everyone else. We’re planning on taking Avens and looking at Avens within the overall picture as part of the continuum of care for seniors. So this is what we’re planning on doing.

Now, the fact that Avens is not in the planning study stage at this point, perhaps I can get Mr. Heath to give the Member a bit of a timeline on when we’re expecting that specific item to go into the capital plan.

Yes, Mr. Chairman, I do.

I don’t want to be pulling numbers out of the air here. I recognize that the project is going to be around $30 million. That’s what I know. How many beds that constitutes, I don’t think it’s 600 but I know it’s a project that they see as something that would take them, again, into the future. The reality is they are trying to build something that will take them to 2035, approximately. So the next step, if we agree this is what we need, this is the cost of what we need, is to put it through the capital planning process so that long-term care facility, Aven Centre, can be put up against all of...

We have been in contact with the two Aboriginal organizations in the community, or governments I should say – the local Metis group and the Fort Providence Zhahti Koe Dene Band. So both requests were for them to use the building. One request was to use the building for long-term care and putting four or five individuals in there instead of them moving to Hay River or Fort Simpson long-term care. They would like to keep their elders in the community as long as possible and turn that into a long-term care.

The second request was for the building to become a wellness centre, so they would run all...

We’re moving into the better technology to assist us in health care. We’re going to have electronic medical records right across the entire system. We’re moving all of the authorities into TSC so we’ll have one system that will all be compatible with each other and it will be linked together and working together as a unit, so that’s takes some upfront cost.

For the capital, the simple answer is that we are involved in a lot of construction. There is construction of a fairly modern health care centre that’s 1,000 square metres larger than the current H.H. Williams Hospital. We have a fairly...

Once we have the data and recognizing that, we’re bringing some long-term care facilities on-line. At this point there are an additional 10 units in Behchoko, 18 units in Norman Wells, an additional 10 units in Hay River that are currently in the plan. We’re looking at, like I said, other ways of preventing individuals from needing those facilities. Once we have the numbers, not waiting for the units to be completed, but once we have the number I can bring it forward. I don’t think it would take a long time to do that. I hate to commit people when I don’t have the information, but I would say...

In my role as the senior administrator responsible for seniors, we do a lot of work at the national level, called Aging in Place. The NWT Health and Social Services has a continuum of care for seniors. That, essentially, is our strategy. We look at the long-term care based on age, and then we determine the percentage of individuals that would require long-term care. Then we develop a plan that tries to prevent seniors from going into long-term care as a first priority, so that we are holding back trying to provide seniors, whether they be in homeownership units, public housing, or in senior...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We can provide the Member with a schedule on the planning study and then as we get into the schedule, indicate in the schedule at which point we will do the consultation with the community.

For the details of the process, I’d like to have Mr. Heath provide response to the Member.