Tom Beaulieu

Mr. Speaker, the plan is not to move people that are from Hay River that require long-term care into long-term care beds outside of Hay River. All the long-term care needs in Hay River will be addressed within Hay River. Thank you.

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.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The provider of the day shelter, I think the initial intent was exactly what they think indicates as a shelter, a place for some people to get out of the weather and go and have a warm place to go to. Within that, as they were operating the shelter, they made themselves, the John Howard Society themselves made recommendations to provide some training to staff. They thought that the operation of the shelter would require some training of their own staff on various things like First Aid and so on. Also, trying to provide some referrals. So individuals that are using the...

I don’t have the statistics on the Hope Foundation, but I will ask the department, through the deputy minister, to try to get that information to determine how many donations were made from people that live in the NWT to the Hope Foundation.

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. The hospitals in the NWT are currently unable to receive harvested organs and tissue donation; however, they are working with the Hope Foundation, which is a human organ procurement exchange out of Edmonton. They work with them to try to harvest or do organ donation, if the possibility exists and the opportunity exists.

I think I indicated that they had requested some training in certain areas, and that they have requested that they be allowed to deal with some of the other organizations in the community in which they can refer their clientele. I think the original concept of its shelter was to provide a warm, safe place for individuals to go during the day. These are people that don’t have anywhere else to attend. But the opportunity of getting the people together, the provider thought that these things had been added and had requested that, and had not actually changed the agreement in any way or the...