Tom Beaulieu

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That concludes Health and Social Services’ response to general comments.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In the growing seniors population, it’s a demographic that is happening right across the country. We recognize that. That is a fast growing population. In order for us to maintain the funding to support the fast growing population, we do need to put in programs, rehab programs, more funding towards long-term care and putting some good, solid assisted living programs in place to keep people in their homes and so on.

The deficits of the health and social services authorities across the region had indicated earlier that our intention is to look at that by trying to do some...

Yes, I will commit to that.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There were a lot of comments here. I’m going to try to run through them without trying to repeat as much as possible. Also to try to group some of the response as best I can.

On the eHealth, we too agree that the electronic health is the way to go. Right now we have digital imaging and the DI/PACS are available in 22 communities across the North. This includes both the Stanton Hospital in Yellowknife, Inuvik Regional Hospital and then the following 20 communities: Hay River, Fort Smith, Behchoko, Simpson, Deline, Norman Wells, Tulita, Good Hope, Fort Resolution, Fort...

Yes, we recognize the benefits.

Yes, I do, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, the Fort Providence Health Centre was built in 1970. The life expectancy is now up with that facility. There is a plan to replace that facility. We are planning on completing the study. Sorry; the study has been completed. The project is approved. It is in design this year. We are expecting to have it completed by 2015.

The Stanton Territorial Hospital is a territorial asset and as all residents of the Northwest Territories will have equal access to Stanton Territorial Hospital, that process may be that way, and that is the plan. But at the same time, I must say that our intention is to bring our plan, our governance plan back to the Standing Committee on Social Programs before decisions are made. We also have ongoing discussions with the Joint Leadership Council before we make decisions.

Aside from discussing healthy eating in the schools and dropping the pop, some exercise, talking to schools about people exercising, talking about walking with people, we’re also looking at carefully expanding the home care so that people with diabetes, that more attention is paid to people’s feet. With diabetes there are a lot of preventable amputations that do occur in the health system. Each amputation costs about $80,000 and there are numbers out there indicating that about 80 percent of those are preventable. If we can step up the home care to make sure that anybody that has diabetes who...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Diabetes is a chronic disease. The department has a plan around chronic diseases which includes diabetes. We recognize that diabetes is increasing by 200 people per year across the Territories. We have not only developed a plan but are actually doing some work in healthy eating, exercises and so on that will combat diabetes.