Statements in Debates
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The very first process to adding long-term care beds to Hay River would be to go through the capital planning process. I’ve had discussions with the executive and the Department of Health and Social Services about initiating the initial discussions that are needed at the senior bureaucratic level to talk about adding this project to the capital plan for the GNWT. Thank you.
It would be difficult to stand up in the Legislative Assembly and ask for some political support on this, but we can, hopefully, based on the merit of the assessment in the community for the need of long-term care beds in Hay River. It would be based on that that we would extend the use of that facility.
If we were to request that the Department of Public Works and Services reviewed the building for use as a long-term care facility, Health and Social Services would pay for the review.
Thank you. The department and I are certainly aware that these are issues. Again, the current governance system allows each of the health authorities to employ nurses right across their own authorities. So each of the authorities would have a geographical area and they would employ the nurses to the locations. They’re independent from other authorities, and also independent from Stanton Hospital and independent from the Department of Health and Social Services. That is an issue; we see that as an issue. So recognizing that we’re doing something about the governance issue starting with the...
Thank you. Other than providing information to all of the community groups in the various communities where the health centres would close, with the exception of essential services, I don’t know if the Beaufort-Delta Health and Social Services Authority actually had an action plan in place that would say that this is what we were going to do in case of emergency. I suppose that they would treat it like any other medical emergency. If there was a medical emergency at any time while there was staff at the health centre or not, they would be treated in the same type of urgency. Thank you.
We are looking to try to develop something at Nats’ejee K’eh. As I indicated, perhaps some treatment programs that would be built in in the summertime for youth.
Right now all of our youth that end up in treatment end up in treatment in southern placements. I think that the numbers of youth going to treatment, that type of treatment where they are placed in a southern treatment facility is very low. I think I at one time used the number five youth had gone to treatment over a two-year period from the Northwest Territories. So it’s difficult to build a program around that type of number, but we...
Mr. Speaker, as per our earlier discussions in the House, I have gone to see the board, Nats’ejee K’eh. I’ve met with the board at Nats’ejee K’eh. The board and the executive at Nats’ejee K’eh are sending a proposal into our department to look at different ways that they think they can deliver the addictions program at Nats’ejee K’eh to have greater success and also open up the options.
Currently, they have only men’s programs and women’s programs only. They don’t have youth treatment and so on. They were going to propose the various types of treatment, perhaps even family treatment, youth...
Mr. Speaker, no, we had not assessed H.H. Williams as a long-term care only facility. We had assumed that when the new health care was built, all of the services would leave the Hay River current H.H. Williams Hospital. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, the department is aware that the long-term care right across the Territories is a priority. We are doing various things like trying to get the current long-term care beds up to full staffing. Also, we are adding long-term care beds within the overall system.
Long-term care is a territorial program, so even though long-term care exists in Hay River, there are other long-term care beds where we are expanding. Yes, we are doing what we can to make sure that the department does understand that long-term care is a priority. Thank you.
The plan was always to make sure those long-term care beds did not disappear into the system. It was just not to put them into the hospital. In their current location, we can do an evaluation to see about the feasibility of keeping the long-term care beds in H.H. Williams up until the time when those beds are replaced.