Tom Beaulieu

Yes, as I said to the other Member asking questions, yes, we will take an active role in this process. Thank you.

The intention was to look at this right away. The direction has been given to the department through the deputy minister and other senior management to look at this policy, and if I know the department and senior management well, I am expecting some drafts soon. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At this time the various health and social services authorities approach this from different angles. We don’t have a standard policy across the board from the various health and social services authorities at this time on handling the area of compassion.

Yes, as I indicated earlier, we feel that this airport at Garrison deserves, warrants full consideration and I will ensure that the Department of Health does fully consider this as a viable option for landing.

Thank you. As I indicated earlier, we play no official role but we are aware of the discussions. We’re staying in the loop, but we haven’t engaged officially either with the National Defence or any involvement with the City of Edmonton at this time. Thank you.

Thank you. The discussions that I was referring to were discussions about the Garrison Airport. As far as the airport and the Edmonton City Centre Airport, one runway is shut down, but medevacs are continuing to use that airport. The only time the medevacs are diverted to the International Airport at this time is because of weather. Thank you.

The Member is right; diabetes is increasing by 200 people per year in the Northwest Territories. That is pretty extreme for a small population. We are developing a Diabetes Strategy. This is something the department is doing.

Currently we do various programs in the schools where we’re teaching kids about healthy choices and looking at their lunches and so on, discouraging any drinks or any type of food that has a high content of sugar and sodium, so we are trying to promote in the schools for the kids to eat a good, healthy lunch that includes lots of vegetables and fruit. Thank you.

The department is always looking at better ways to provide services to the elders in the communities. An example is coinciding with the closure of the Joe Greenland Centre in Fort McPherson, we’ve upgraded the services that are being provided to the elders in – I’m sorry, not Fort McPherson but, rather, Aklavik. We used to do 139 visits annually and we’ve increased those visits to almost 700 visits to the elders and we added a nurse to work with home care and one licensed practical nurse as well.

Diabetes is a chronic disease. The department does have the medication needed for chronic disease that is available to the people. Also the home care for individuals that have diabetes, a home care worker will go in and do work in…

Yes, I would be more than willing to do that. Thank you.