Tom Beaulieu

The initial meeting, which starts tomorrow and then will go all day tomorrow and Saturday, they are going to sit down and this is going to be their very first initial meeting. This is a new thing. They’re going to determine what is the best method of getting information. It’s possible that in some cases they will be seeking a lot of recommendations and a lot of information. I think they’re also going to put some stuff together that will provoke discussion in the right direction.

When we get the information back from the communities, when the communities tell us that this is the solution, then we’re going to assume that those are going to be the solutions. One of the best ways that I found in my past to come up with a solution is to go ask where the problem is. This is what we’re doing. We’re going back to the communities and we’re asking them to come up with a solution. I think it’s worked in the past when this type of thing has been requested of the communities and the communities want to come up with the solutions. Once the recommendations, I guess we’ll call it at...

The forum? It costs $300,000. That’s our budget and we will be getting the money from the federal government to cover the cost. Thank you.

Interestingly enough, I believe that there is an actual cost benefit to this type of surgery in the system. As the Member indicated, all of the reduction in medications and healthier life for individuals and everything, I believe that there is a cost benefit to this type of thing. Weighing those options, I would look into what it would take to see if the system can take a serious look at the laparoscopic adjustment band surgery.

I’m not sure that we’ve asked the right questions. As I indicated in my Member’s statement, I think we needed to go back out to the communities. At the very beginning of my position as Health and Social Services Minister, I travelled to, I think, 12 or 13 communities with an attempt to try to travel to all the communities in the North, and a common theme was developing in the communities, and the communities were indicating that they need to find a solution for their addiction issues in their communities. With that in mind, we’ve developed this forum to go back out to those people to see if...

Sometimes there’s a specialized treatment that’s not available at Nats'ejee K'eh. However, in order for an individual to get a southern placement, they have to go through a process. That’s a process that’s usually initiated at the community level and then goes through some form of either a regional health and social services authority or through the department. Although I don’t know the details on how people end up in southern treatment, I do know that it is a process and usually the placement is first. If somebody wants to go to residential treatment, the placement would be first at Nats'ejee...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Other than counselling, other types of things including the people like the physicians themselves, dietitians, psychiatrists, mental health counsellors, nutritionists, internal medicine services and those types of things. We don’t have any other type of program. We are working with, I believe it’s the Alberta Health Services. They are willing to provide some of the modules they use to address the issue of morbid obesity.

In 2011-2012 the department worked on the Home Care Enhancement and Aboriginal Diabetes Initiative. We spent $77,500 on that initiative to develop a Chronic Disease Strategy, and diabetes is a part of the overall Chronic Disease Strategy which includes cardiovascular and cancer.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Detox is available in the two hospitals that we operate, Stanton Territorial Hospital and the Beaufort-Delta Regional Hospital. There is also, I think, a capability of an individual to go through detoxification in the larger health centres. Thank you.

Like I said, we would on the elders’ side and the Elders’ Council. I recognize that we need to engage the various seniors’ societies across the North to try and put this together and pay for all of this. I need to be able to find the funding to do such a project. Also, if we are going to engage the youth to find the funding for that as well.