Tom Beaulieu

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ve said in this House many times that we are going to do everything possible to keep the seniors in their home communities as much as possible. The only time we wish to move seniors is when there is no long-term care available in their communities and they have to go to long-term care, then we will sometimes move them to another long-term care facility. For the most part, the idea is to keep people as close to home as possible.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will just have the deputy minister provide detail on next year’s planning.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Health and Social Services is willing and prepared to work with the Department of Justice and RCMP to see if this type of program, where the social worker rides with the RCMP, is possible.

The department is prepared to have that discussion with community leaders as soon as possible and then also discuss this with the Minister of Public Works and Services to see if we can coordinate something quicker than what we had initially intended.

Mr. Chair, perhaps the best way to respond to this is to provide the House with the next steps on the planning. I would like to ask the assistant deputy minister, Mr. Elkin, to do that.

We’ve had this discussion over an extended period, a long time period here, discussing those types of needs. It would be good to be able to provide this official long-term care in all of the communities so that no one ever has to leave their communities, no elders will ever have to leave their community. It’s a matter of money. It’s a matter of funding in order for us to provide a long-term care facility.

Let’s just look at one community that I have a few numbers on, Aklavik. Aklavik is a good one to go to. In order to operate the facility that’s available in Aklavik as a long-term care...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, I do.

Thank you. What we have available in Hay River, if we’re not talking about any other communities, would be the current long-term care beds at H.H. Williams, and unless we’re able to come back to the Legislative Assembly to get long-term care beds added to the long-term care facility of Woodland Manor, then we would keep the long-term care beds at H.H. Williams open until that addition, I guess, would be added to Woodland. It’s just that if we are not to use any facilities outside of Hay River to house the people that are in long-term care beds, then we would have no option but to keep that...

We are currently looking at what we’re referring to as a continuum of care for seniors. That is looking at all the programs, and a priority is to try to keep seniors in their private homes to provide supports, perhaps making their units barrier free, working with NWT Housing Corporation or seniors friendly. That’s another level also, below barrier free, and so on. Right to where they’re starting with individuals attempting to keep them in their home as long as possible, right through to extended care and trying to fit the seniors into all of those supportive programs, and trying to keep them...

Our philosophy is to try to house the people as close to home as possible, so that the facility that’s being built in Norman Wells really is designed and built to accommodate the Sahtu region and new long-term care expansion in Behchoko is designed to accommodate the Tlicho citizens. So along that philosophy, our intention would be to provide long-term care or extended care as close to home as possible.

So the people from the H.H. Williams that are in extended care, if they are eligible for long-term care as opposed to extended care, they will end up, first priority would be the extended care...