Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I just want to follow up on my Member’s statement about the Dehcho Health and Social Services Authority and where we are and where we’re going.
I was pleased that the Minister of Health and Social Services was in Fort Simpson and had the ability to explain to residents, I think it was like a bird’s eye view plan of the health authority. So I’d just like to ask the Minister and get it on record here in the House, once again, on behalf of my constituents, the Dehcho Health and Social Services Authority does not have an existing board.
What is the plan for the Dehcho Health and Social Service Authority as we move forward? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are committed to ensuring that we have mechanisms that allow the voice of the people to be heard with respect to health and social services authorities. The Member is right; we do have a public administrator providing us the direction from the Dehcho at this point in time. We are exploring options for changing our structure so that we can provide better health, better care and better results for our residents throughout the Northwest Territories. In that model, I believe and I’m committed to ensuring that the people for the regions and the communities continue to have a voice in the delivery of their health and social services.
Part of the Dehcho Health and Social Services authority is spread over basically two constituencies, Nahendeh and Deh Cho. There was some talk about utilizing the Hay River hospital as opposed to everybody coming to Yellowknife. Can the Minister comment on that?
What we are trying to accomplish is a more integrated system of health and social services delivery in the Northwest Territories so that a resident in a community can receive seamless care through the whole system from their community of origin to any facility that can provide them the services they need. With a more integrated system, we can maximize our benefits of having patients go to other locations as opposed to just focusing, say, on Yellowknife. We’ll be able to flow patients to Inuvik, Hay River or wherever we can provide the best service in the best time for the best results, so it could conceivably include individuals, depending on conditions, utilizing the services that will be available in Hay River.
I’d like to thank the Minister for that answer. As well as the old board and the authority, we had one member from each community sitting on a governance council. Just how would that kind of community input be involved in this new structure that the Minister is thinking about?
Those discussions still need to be had and ironed out, for the most part. We do know we want to, and must, maintain regional and community input, but every region and every authority that exists today is different and has a different catchment area, and the individuals that need to be represented may be different, so it’s not going to be one model fits all. We’re going to have to talk to the people from the Deh Cho with respect to that particular area, as we’ll need to talk to the people from the Tlicho, the Sahtu, the Beaufort-Delta as well as Yellowknife. We need to have those discussions, and we will be having those discussions as we move forward. We are currently out seeking input and some guidance and having discussions with communities throughout the Northwest Territories as well as committee.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I’d just like to ask the Minister to continue to keep my constituents and our residents informed as we move along. I know that sometimes we get ahead of ourselves when we get an idea. I think that’s important, and of course, I’d like to ask the Minister to return to Nahendeh for a fuller tour later on this spring as we move along with this bird’s eye view of health authorities in the Northwest Territories.
I believe it’s important to get to the communities to meet with the residents. As the Minister of Health and Social Services, I’m absolutely committed to do that. I’ll take that as an invitation, and I’ll have my staff work with the Member’s staff and we’ll work out a date.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just to follow up to my Member’s statement, I’d like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services, what process does the department follow for medical escorts for the elderly?
Thank you, Mr. Blake. The Minister of Health, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There is a policy in place. I do acknowledge that the policy is quite old, and we have heard significant feedback from residents from across the Northwest Territories that it does need to be reviewed. We have committed to doing that review. I did meet with Members in January to talk about the review, the timeline for the review. We will have a policy, a redrafted policy shortly, and from there we will have an opportunity to discuss and go out for consultation on the individual components which do include escorts. We will have an opportunity to amend that portion of the Medical Travel Policy, and we will be seeking input from Members and from the public as we do so.
I’d also like to ask the Minister, why are medical escorts denied when approved by the doctor?
There is a policy in place and recommendations do have to come for an escort and sometimes they don’t meet the policy as it stands, which is another indication that there seems to be a glitch in the matrix, if you will, and we need to work on this policy and we need to fix this policy. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I also mentioned in my statement a need for support more along the lines of counselling when dealing with life-threatening illnesses.
I would like to ask the Minister, will the Minister develop these support programs? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
There are a variety of conditions that our residents may be facing with respect to health. I know that we are doing a significant number of things around cancer and have cancer support groups and other groups and mechanisms that are available to individuals that are suffering from particular conditions. If the Member has some other conditions or some specific conditions that he would like to talk about, I would certainly be open to that discussion and encourage him to come down the hall and we can have that conversation. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Blake.
Mr. Speaker, I would just like to ask the Minister, are those supports available to the people in the small communities? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I know that we do have individuals in each of the regions who are providing services out to the smaller communities and there are opportunities through telehealth where some of those groups can connect.
As far as the communities the Member represents, I would be happy to provide the Member with a little bit of breakdown of some of these supports we are providing with respect to these cancer support groups. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, and I would like to follow up on my Member’s statement and see if I can get some clarity as to the department’s policies.
I would like to first ask the Minister, what is the policy of Education, Culture and Employment, the department and/or the Minister around communicating public information to MLAs, either the MLA themselves or their staff? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. There is a mutual agreement with the MLAs on guiding principles and process convention that we want to have a coordinated approach with our departments, not only my departments but other departments. Once it is funnelled through my department, we are fully aware of what is out there. But an independent agency or organization or MLA’s office go directly to the department and we need to keep track of those activities, those transactions. Those are just mere transactions that we need to be fully aware of. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, thanks to the Minister, I think. I really am struggling to understand why public information must be routed through the Minister’s office. Were I a general citizen and not an elected official, I could phone the name on the press release and ask for the confirmation of the information directly.
So, I need to ask the Minister why he feels that information that is publically available must be requested through his office and why my office cannot go directly to his department and ask for it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, again, with a coordinated effort and approach, we need to keep track of all the transactions that are happening within my department. I need to be on top of any request that comes in through an MLA so we are on top of answering their questions. We give immediate answer back, within five days. If it is a day-based operation, then we can definitely give it in a day. It is just a reporting mechanism, keeping track of all the transactions that are flowing through our department within the GNWT government-wide. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
I guess I need to say to the Minister that if I had asked for this information through his office, it probably wouldn’t have arrived in time for me to communicate that information to my constituents in advance of that meeting, so I have a real difficulty with everything having to go through his office.
I would like to ask the Minister, if he needs to track every request that comes from a Minister’s office, why cannot requests for public information asked of one of his staff of the department, why can that staff person, or a communications person, why can they not track that information or that request? Thank you.
That is happening at the same time as well. As you know, the Department of Education, Culture and Employment is the second biggest department along with Health and Social Services. We go through so many transactions throughout the day and we just want to be mindful of the requests that come in, so we can be prepared for the session and prepared for any briefings that may come up. So, we’re on top of the activities that are happening or transactions that may come across our table.
At the end of the day, we just want to keep track of all the transactions that are going through. We may have missed out on some areas, but we try to be on top of it every step of the way. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Minister’s desire to be on top of things, but if he really thinks that I’m going to be asking him questions about public information about a meeting that’s upcoming, I have a hard time understanding that.
I would like to know if there is any hope that the Minister might change this policy. I’m talking about public information, something that’s already in the public domain. It’s been released through a press release or a media advisory.
Is there any hope that he will change his policy and allow his staff to talk to my staff to confirm public information? Thank you.
There is always hope.
---Laughter
Honestly, I can work with the Member and have that brought to my department to discuss further. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am going to follow up on some of the alarming stats that were presented to us by the health authority in the Beaufort-Delta region on the amount of hours spent on counselling, the amount of no-shows, the referrals, especially the amount of new referrals. There were 699 new referrals to counselling services.
One thing that I have brought up in this House, and I’ll do it again today, is our psychiatric services in terms of assessments. Some of these clients might be going through counselling over and over again without getting the proper assessments they need because we only have so much psychiatric services in the Northwest Territories.
I’d like to ask the Minister, what is he doing to improve our psychiatric services so we can do the proper assessments for people in the Northwest Territories moving forward in this upcoming fiscal year? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The honourable Minister of Health, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Psychiatric services in the Northwest Territories have been enhanced through a partnership between Stanton Territorial Health Authority as well as Dalhousie Global Psychiatry and Yellowknife Health and Social Services. As the Member knows, there are two resident psychiatrists in the Northwest Territories, and mental health services, as I’ve just said, have been expanded to include the Dalhousie Global Psychiatry department of Dalhousie University. Both the on-site psychiatrist and those helping us through Dalhousie provide both direct and distance treatment consultation and assessment. This can be done over telehealth. So, we are enhancing our services that are available to our residents. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I’m glad the Minister brought up the Dalhousie program and gave us a little detail into how that’s working so far.
In terms of doing the assessments and if there are any residents of the NWT or clients that are going through this program that need some treatment for their psychiatric services, how many beds do we have in the Northwest Territories that would be able to house some of these individuals who might need around-the-clock services? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I can’t recall the number of beds in the Northwest Territories, off the top of my head, but I will certainly get that information back to the Member. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I know that one of our issues and our challenges that we have in the Northwest Territories is resources and infrastructure to house some of these individuals. We are going through the same thing. We also have the long-term care issues. We have an increase in our seniors population, and with that might come dementia and other areas that might require more services.
Does the government have some type of program with out-of-province jurisdictions that provide services to the GNWT? If so, how many NWT residents are accessing those southern placements? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
In the Northwest Territories there are a number of long-term care facilities throughout the Territories in different communities and regions. The Housing Corp has done some pretty impressive work in getting some infrastructure on the ground to provide types of support. There is a dementia centre here in Yellowknife. So, we do provide a significant number of services to individuals needing it.
I’m not sure I fully understand the Member’s question. Is he asking how many seniors are utilizing long-term care facilities outside the Northwest Territories? I’m not too sure what he’s asking, but I’d be happy to sit down with the Member, get the specifics and get back to him with the information. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I should have been a little bit more clear. I was looking at psychiatric services, out-of-territory services that are provided by other government or other NGOs.
What does the Minister have planned, looking at some of the stats that we have in the Beaufort-Delta? What is his plan, working with the health authority, to address these high, direct counselling services as well as these new referrals that are putting a strain on our current counselling services that we have in the Beaufort-Delta region right now? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
As I already indicated, the Dalhousie psychiatric partnership has really helped us create some stability within the psychiatric locum pool and has allowed for the expansion of psychiatric services throughout the use of telehealth. On top of that, we do have 65 community counseling positions, including community wellness workers, mental health and addictions counsellors, clinical supervisors, managers, as well as some funded NGO positions to provide community counselling services in the communities. They do things like assessments and crisis intervention, referrals for treatment counselling, follow-up and after-care. So, there are a significant number of positions out there doing this type of work, and with the addition of the advanced psychiatric, we should be able to take down some of that workload and get better care, better health and a better future for our residents. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today as a follow-up to my Member’s statement on my questions surrounding the disconnect to the recent media reports that more than 30 cleanup workers at Giant Mine site were critically exposed to toxic arsenic trioxide. We have received little to no updates on this disaster, and it is important that we hear today from the Minister responsible for the Workers’ Safety and Compensation Commission as to what we are doing in the wake of this health and safety issue.
Can the Minister inform the House as to when his office was made aware when these critically arsenic-exposed cleanup workers at Giant Mine site were showing positive test results in their weekly medical monitoring program? Thank you.
