Tom Beaulieu

Although we only had midwifery services in Fort Smith and Yellowknife, this is an NWT midwifery review.

A part of that money that is being spent by the health and social services authorities is for addictions. That is for treatment. It is for detox. Yes, during the upcoming business plan we would be willing to talk to the MLAs and discuss the possibility of moving more money into detox. Thank you.

Detox is a program, not a building. What we are saying is that the health and social services authority is spending about $6 million across the board on mental health and addictions. Detox is a part of that and can be in any location. It is a program. It is available right across the North and certainly available in Yellowknife if needed. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t have the details of the Fort Smith program. I wasn’t aware that there was a program in Fort Smith. I heard about it for the first time today.

As I indicated earlier, we are looking at on-the-land treatment programs. We have recently reviewed Nats’ejee K’eh. I have recently been in contact with the chairman of the board, and in fact, he has written me a letter inviting me to a meeting to meet with the Nats’ejee K’eh board, and they have various items that they wish to talk about pertaining directly to treatment in that facility. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Member’s comments. I will talk to the deputy minister and we will do a call for boards before the end of the session. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Member is aware, we have a public administrator in place for the Beaufort-Delta Health and Social Services Authority. That’s not our desire. We would prefer to have a board; however, in consultation with the community, it was recommended that we fill the CEO position. At this time we have gone out for advertising to try to fill the CEO position. We want to fill the CEO position and then develop, again, and reappoint a board after we have a CEO position. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I must advise the Member that in the Beaufort-Delta Health and Social Services Authority there is no regular CEO at this time. We have an acting CEO from Hay River, followed by another acting CEO out of Yellowknife. This was done by review. Unfortunately, we were hoping that the position would have been extended until the review was complete, but as the term of this particular position expired before the review was completed, the individual position was cut prior to review. A review is being done of all the positions in the Beaufort-Delta.

This is a good start, the Member bringing this to the floor of the Legislative Assembly. I’m very pleased to hear that Hay River is interested in the Midwifery Program. We will have to partner with the Hay River Health and Social Services Authority to review the request. Once the review is done we’re hoping that the program will expand. In a place like Fort Smith, in 2011 there were 24 babies born in Fort Smith with midwives and 26 more that were taken to birth and then were born in most likely Yellowknife, as we said, or elsewhere because of possible risk or mother’s choice.

The review and expansion analysis of the Midwifery Program was scheduled to be done this month. It’s about three weeks behind and I’m expecting that the program and the review will be done very soon.