Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh

Statements in Debates

Debates of , 17th Assembly, 4th Session (day 27)

The anticipation is that things would go smooth and that an individual that gets a postcard 45 days before their birthday will then have, essentially, some time – I believe it’s four months even after their birthday – to apply. But their coverage is intended to continue as long as they have actually applied, whether they have the card or not.

That is just something that we’re doing now, because, of course, ideally, people would apply for their cards, go through the regular system, the card would come on time and they would be covered. That was the planning that took place. That was the...

Debates of , 17th Assembly, 4th Session (day 27)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The department is working with all of the health authorities and also the health centres right across the territory to try to make this renewal of health cards as smooth as possible.

As of the middle of this month, we were to process 11,600 health care cards starting in January 2013. We have about an 86 percent compliance. We have about 86 percent of those processed, so there are a lot of health cards being done. Overall, we need to process about 38,000 health care cards in 2013.

For the most part we think it’s going fairly smoothly. We do have some glitches in the...

Debates of , 17th Assembly, 4th Session (day 27)

I don’t have that information with me. The last information I have is there was some issue about the land tenure. The Hay River Reserve, the majority of the land is federal land, if not all. So we’re just sorting out the land tenure and I believe that that has been sorted out. So I could maybe commit to trying to get the centre opened this summer.

Debates of , 17th Assembly, 4th Session (day 27)

Thank you, Madam Chair. The Health Information Act is currently being drafted and the bill will be introduced in this fall session of the 17th Assembly.

Debates of , 17th Assembly, 4th Session (day 27)

I hope to have the Beaufort-Delta board in place, whether it be an advisory board or a management board, before the end of this government.

Debates of , 17th Assembly, 4th Session (day 26)

If we thought there were shortfalls, we wouldn’t be putting in such a system. We feel that this is an improvement. We’re handing a patient over the same way that all of Alberta that medevac people into Edmonton hand their patients over. We think we’re handing them over to the Alberta Health Services at that point and we think that the patient is getting good care, excellent care from the time that they arrive. They’re able to go into the terminal, they’re able to turn the plane around quicker, the medevac plane can have a patient waiting there, delivered there by Alberta Health Services and...

Debates of , 17th Assembly, 4th Session (day 26)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The fact that the Edmonton Centre Airport closed down was not a decision that laid with this government. The fact that there is more time to fly to the International Airport is because it happens to be further away than the Municipal Airport. However, what I was referring to was the care once the person arrived. We are able to move the person that is being medevaced to Edmonton into an ambulance service that would take them through the city and we are able to hand them over at the airport instead of outside, or having a contractor that we were contracting from here pick...

Debates of , 17th Assembly, 4th Session (day 26)

All of the standards for the medevacs are laid out in the contracts between Stanton and the people that provide medevac services. Again, it would be difficult to put an actual time period in any specific community because it would depend largely on what type of craft would be needed.

In this specific case, the plane that would be ready under normal circumstances to pick up a medevac was not suitable to go into Trout Lake. They had to reconfigure a different plane. That took some time.

I agree with the Member that there was too much time at the outset contacting the medical people, and we are...

Debates of , 17th Assembly, 4th Session (day 26)

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. The response time would depend upon what type of craft would be needed. In this case, they determined, after contacting the medical people in the Deh Cho, that a Twin Otter was needed. So a Twin Otter was configured as quickly as that can happen to get to the site would be the response time.

Debates of , 17th Assembly, 4th Session (day 26)

Yellowknife Health and Social Services has responded to the information, the Commissioner, of privacy concerns. If certain recommendations in the report that the health authority did not agree with, that may have been the reason that they have not responded to every concern, but every concern that was put out there where the health authority felt that required a response or a change, that has been made. Thank you.