Tom Beaulieu

In the past in the Northwest Territories on Franklin Avenue there was a detox centre. That was shut down for one reason or another. People needing detox at this time do seek detoxification through various avenues. The department is there, like I indicated. Health and Social Services is spending over $6 million in the various health authorities to address that issue, mental health and addictions. Detox is a part of addictions and, yes, we as a department are more than willing and are prepared and want to be involved in helping people detox from drugs and alcohol. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The program that I was referring to, on-the-land, that was requested by many of the small communities. The small communities refer to on-the-land treatment as a more holistic treatment that is to address all of the issues, mental health, addictions and the whole human being. Regardless of what type of addiction the individual is struggling with, they feel that specific program would work on the land for the small communities. Thank you.

I’ve asked the department to look at best practices at that type of treatment. We recognize that most of the communities have a cultural area that the communities will frequent, and we want to look at those areas working with the communities. I think the communities understand that addictions are a huge issue. Certainly the health providers understand that addictions are a huge issue. We do want to look at treatment on the land and we want to look at the cultural aspect of it. All of the four aspects that the Member spoke of and their areas and everything and develop a program that would be...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ve given direction to the Department of Health and Social Services that we’re moving more into prevention. Prevention is a big part of addictions, mental health and addictions. We have already started moving in that direction. It’s the same resources that we have in other areas and we want to move them into programs that we think are successful. We want to fund the programs for a longer term and, hopefully, increase the amount of money we are putting towards the addictions in the communities right across the territory. Thank you.

The Member is right; during our meetings of the Beaufort-Delta leadership and the Gwich’in, we had indicated that we were going to work on reappointing the board. I was not totally up to speed on why the board was removed initially, but there seemed to be a strong desire to have a board in place and the department will work with the Beaufort-Delta Health and Social Services Authority to appoint a full board in the Beaufort-Delta as soon as possible. Thank you.

I don’t believe it does fit. It’s a very unfortunate circumstance. As we were reviewing all of the positions for the betterment of the smaller communities when the review was incomplete as of the date when this specific position’s term had expired, the term was allowed to expire and the review was not complete. The review is being done on the positions and the positions that should be in Tsiigehtchic for the betterment of the community will be put in place.

Although the review itself cost about $105,000, we do believe as a department, as do the other health and social services authorities, that there is a cost savings when a baby is born closer to home with a midwife. The exact savings I don’t have here but I can make that available to the Member without a problem. There is definitely a savings from having a hospital birth under a doctor’s care.

As I indicated, the decision is made by the doctor that’s doing the surgery. If we could go back to discuss the change here, I think we would be prepared to do that as a department, to discuss with the doctor why he makes those decisions on how he has the persons tested up here and then the individual doesn’t actually get the operation until Monday. We can, as a department, go to the doctors and find out why that occurs and get back to the Member.

The Department of Health and Social Services is currently working with the Department of Human Resources on a new Physician Recruitment Strategy. The strategy is to bring the doctors into the community. That is the number one priority. We are still using locums from the South. A plan B could be to bring the doctors from Yellowknife and then the doctors from here would work in the Beaufort-Delta and have more continuity, but we’re still trying to work on the strategy to bring doctors into Inuvik and the other regional centres that don’t have doctors.

Our first priority is to have doctors in the regions for easy access for the patients. We need doctors to be in the regions, and Inuvik is one of the regions and has nine positions. Of the nine positions, only 0.8 positions are filled in Inuvik. There have been attempts, there have been websites put out in an attempt to recruit, but as I said, in the Beaufort-Delta we are prepared to work with the community of Inuvik, whether it be the municipality or Beaufort-Delta leadership in order to attract doctors to Inuvik as a first priority. Thank you.