Tom Beaulieu

Yes, Mr. Speaker, I will meet the NWT Seniors’ Society. I have met with the Seniors' Society once since being appointed the Minister responsible for Seniors, and they know that I’m prepared to meet with them again any time that they wish to meet with me. I think we may actually have a meeting scheduled in a very short time here. I will bring that specific issue up at that time. Thank you.

The Department of Health and Social Services offers a range of programs to all seniors across the territory in all the communities. They range from home care to long-term care, extended care and other seniors’ benefits across the territory. I don’t believe there are any monies actually marked for specific seniors’ societies in the communities, but there is money given to the community for those very seniors. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The hospital operating rooms for elective hip surgery or joint surgeries are now running at full capacity. That was effective August 13, 2011. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The public advisory is one of the first key communications that we will do with the community. In the past what we’ve done when we’ve had a couple of lakes in a certain area, we’ve also followed up in writing and attached any other reports that do accompany these type of releases and present them to the First Nations. We know that we’ve had discussions with Dehcho First Nations. In turn they have met with the local chief and senior admin officer from Jean Marie River.

Thank you. Yes, through regulations we can gather the information. However, at this time, like I said, we haven’t gone through the act to gather the information. I’m told that information can be gathered. The electronic medical health records that we are starting to use now allows us to gather information in Yellowknife and Hay River at this time. We need to expand the electronic medical health records right across the Territories as a first step if we’re going to track all the prescription drug use across the Territories. For now we are capable of tracking in Yellowknife and Hay River.

We’re trying to reform governance, first of all. We are trying to work with the human resources to get professional at attracting practitioners. But the key is consultation. We have to consult with the communities in order to reform governance. We can’t go in there and say you’re losing five positions, Hay River, they’re going to be moved here; Fort Smith is losing all their doctors, they’re going to be moved here without proper consultation. At the first Joint Leadership Council some of the board members were not happy with this. They want us to continue to push and sell the communities where...

Right now we have three public administrators in place of boards. That is at Stanton, Beaufort-Delta and Hay River. In our initial discussions in the communities, the communities had indicated that they would like to see the boards put back in with representatives from the communities. We would like to consult with the new boards or with the current boards. That doesn’t mean that we’re going to wait until all the boards are in place before we start to make a move on this. We’re going right to the communities and indicating that that’s what we wish to do. So we have actually had the very...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is unfortunate that often I have made a Member’s statement that acknowledges the passing of Tu Nedhe people. I do this regrettably, but acknowledge that passing away is part of life and each should be acknowledged. Since December 2011 four Tu Nedhe citizens have passed away.

Georgina Victoria Fabien, born July 30, 1958, passed away on December 2, 2011, at the age of only 53. Georgina passed away while she was asleep. Georgina is survived by her husband, Darrow Andrews; her son, Jason Barrens; her sisters Rita, Angelina, Kaye, Helen and Lorraine; her brothers Lawrence...

Some of the telehealth communications have prevented the necessity to use medical travel, if that’s what the question is. In a sense, the doctor was able to assist the nurse or another doctor at the other end of the telehealth screen so that individuals could be properly diagnosed by the person that’s with the patient. In a sense, I guess it has lessened some of the medical travel costs by using telehealth.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We continue to do recruitment. We work with Human Resources to work with each of the health and social services authorities on recruitment. We do have a joint recruitment system. Then once the doctors accept jobs or whatnot, they would then have an option to go to where they wish to go, in most cases. When we’re recruiting for doctors in general, usually the doctors end up here, in the history. We have a website, we are working with a couple of universities in the South where we’re working with – they’re like interns I suppose, but I forget the name, they’re residents I...