Tom Beaulieu

Thank you. It’s an award, it’s an RFP process. Through the request for proposals we determine which is the best value to the authorities and it’s awarded based on that. So this deficit funding, essentially what happens is when the health authority has a contract that they have to continue to run these two homes almost like a non-discretionary funding, in essence there’s just no possible way that we could get the costs from running these two homes from approximately $2.1 million down to $1.2 million and expect to continue to run these two homes. So this money is put in for that.

As I said...

Although you can donate anywhere in Canada, the NWT government does not specifically have a program dedicated to stem cell. However, we have advised the authorities and have shared information with the authorities, that should somebody in the authorities and within their various authorities across the Territories want to donate stem cells, then they have that ability to do so, and we provided that information. As far as an awareness campaign to the general public, we haven’t done anything on that at this time.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Built into the contract is an escalation of 2.9 percent, an annual increase. I think that so far that contract has been moving along, from our understanding, between Stanton and the provider. I don’t believe we have done a review, but I could check to see if the review has been done and advise the Minister, but I don’t know if there’s been a review done recently.

I know there is a standard of practice, like I have indicated earlier, for the health practitioners to see the patient. However, I’m sure that this happens. I’ll have the deputy minister contact the CEO from the health authority to ensure that is happening across the Sahtu.

That’s a very tough question. It’s something that only the doctor or the surgeon can answer. They are going to determine, based on the condition of the patient, on whether or not the person should be released. If the patient is unhappy, that they think they’re being released from the hospital too early, yes, they do have an avenue where we have had situations down south, in Edmonton to be exact, where the family felt that the patient was being released too early. They contacted us. We contacted the medical people and the person got to stay a couple of extra days. I mean, there is something in...

Again, we recognize the importance of the Midwifery Program, however, there are a lot of competing priorities in the Department of Health and Social Services. This is how we’re planning on rolling it out. We have paid for a consultant to do a review of the Midwifery Program for the Northwest Territories and these numbers are what we’re looking at out of that plan. We’re going to be reviewing that, of course, but for now we have paid for the consultant. This is how the report indicates we should roll out the Midwifery Program. The expansion in Hay River will be contingent upon the completion of...

I was referring to the money that we’re putting in for it. In 2012-2013 we’re doing community consultations. We’re going to review and update the NWT Midwifery Practice Framework and Midwife Regulations. In 2012-2013 we’re also going to do the preliminary health human resources planning for midwife recruitment and training options.

The Midwifery Program is not going to be contingent on THSSI funding. THSSI funding will just be put in, the $75,000 for 2013-2014. However, the rest of the funding, which is planned for Hay River for $472,000 and Beaufort-Delta for $952,000 and expansion of the territorial Midwifery Program of $1.8 million, will be going through the House.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The department recognizes the value of the Midwifery Program. We’re interested in bringing the Midwifery Program back to more than just Fort Smith; across the Territories, actually. With that, we have allocated $75,000 of the Territorial Health System Sustainability Fund from the federal government in 2013-2014 to start the process.

Mr. Speaker, this particular situation has occurred recently and has occurred in the past. We’ve responded to it in various ways. Right now there is no actual requirement for a nurse to go out and go onto the site of an accident, for example. We will, as a department, deal with this situation, because we would like to be able to respond as well. This is why we are looking at a possible way of trying to develop some first responders in the community that can do that work for us. We will work with the authorities and give direction to the authorities to work with our interdepartmental advisory...