Tom Beaulieu

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We don’t have long-term care patients in the hospital, but my understanding is that we might be talking about patients in extended care.

Right now I understand that basically what happens is that it’s based on clinical need. So the clinical need for an individual in long-term care is they get two hours’ worth of physio per week, and then they’ll get two hours’ worth of physio per week. If there’s a requirement, only two hours per month, then that’s what they get. It’s based on a clinical need of the patient. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, that is an issue, there is no doubt about it. We don’t have the nurses that can go out to a site. If there is an accident or anything right now, the nurses are not the people that end up at the site. I think it has happened in the past, but there are some barriers to nurses going out, leaving their stations to go out to an accident site or a location or to somebody who may be very sick. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are various programs available to train first responders. The Government of the NWT has developed an interdepartmental advisory committee that is actually led by MACA that includes the Department of Justice, Department of Transportation, and Health and Social Services. We are looking at all of the various areas to see what would be the best way to provide that type of training to possible first responders in the communities. Thank you.

The Department of Health and Social Services is working on what we’re referring to as a continuum of care living services for seniors. We are looking first at trying to keep the seniors in their home as long as possible, by providing support such as home care and then moving to assisted living. The next level that we’re working with NWT Housing Corporation and then, I guess, at the end if there are no other options that can keep the people in their home communities, then our last option is to move them into long-term care.

Thank you. I see the HPV advertisements on the television, I notice that they’re put on by the Nunavut government and I don’t know that the Government of the Northwest Territories has the same type of campaign for HPV. But I know that awareness of the types of cancer that we find most prevalent are the ones that we’re trying to campaign as in colorectal, prostate and lung cancer for men, and colorectal, lung and breast cancer for women. Thank you.

The Member will be able to see it as a line item in the capital plan once it goes through the capital planning process in this House.

The decision was made to build a new health centre and the decision was made not to have the new health centre be a home for people to live in. The long-term care beds were not incorporated into the new health care centre. Unfortunately, the long-term care beds were not incorporated into any other location. I’ve committed to the Member that we’re going to look at it. We’re not going to leave individuals that require long-term care that are in H.H. Williams Hospital now out in the cold. We will find a place for them within Hay River if at all possible.

I’m assuming that the Member has the information that those rates of exams or tests are lower than in the larger centres. I don’t have that information here. I think the standard, when we try to do cancer awareness or try to do early detection, is to try to do something that’s standard across the territory, except for in situations where communities are considered to have a spike in cancer rates in their specific communities. We try to work with those communities to look at all the cancer rates, but the standard is that we are supposed to be applying the same across the Territories regardless...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Health does a lot of work in the cancer area, and the department has developed a cancer awareness and response strategy that was funded during this fiscal year, and we have been doing work in various areas under the chief public health officer. I guess that’s how we’re trying to respond to the cancer awareness. Thank you.

Yes. I would commit to completing the assessment for the need of long-term care beds in Hay River and try to move that to the capital planning process as soon as possible.