Mr. Speaker, I highlighted a number of good places that treat addictions, and they do follow-up. In Minnesota my office has spoken to people at Aftercare Services Agency, and they do follow-up treatments. Bellwood highlights and red-flags people that they need to continue to follow-up through phone calls.
Mr. Speaker, has Health and Social Services in any way done any type of analysis on how much good a follow-up treatment program would do for people by a mere phone call?
Mr. Speaker, my two-page letter, which the Member tabled, was in follow-up to the questions that he asked in the first session. If you read that letter in totality, it does state that we do all the work that needs to be done between pre-treatment, the treatment issues, post-treatment, aftercare.
This government in the last five years has spent millions of dollars. We have hired over 40 community wellness workers as well as mental health and addiction coordinators, and they’re actively in the healing process of anybody who comes to their attention. I believe that the program covers all of that, so I’m a little puzzled as to why the Member feels that we’re not doing that sort of work.
Well, you know what? Maybe the problem is solved because there must be two different letters. My two-page letter says: “It is Poundmaker’s practice to make follow-up calls directly with their clients, partly as a way to evaluate their programs and the outcomes…. Community staff” — referring to the G.N.W.T. — “do not consider this follow-up call to be part of the aftercare program.”
That is exactly the opposite of what the Minister just said.
Why is the follow-up call not considered part of the aftercare program, and would this Minister stop being stubborn and say, “We’ll look into this, and we can make this happen”?
Mr. Speaker, I state again that there are follow-up processes, that there are aftercare programs within our alcohol and drug addiction programming. I’m saying to the Member again: we do that already. That is my answer. I am not being stubborn; I am giving the answers. We do that work already, and the workers that we have in our communities do that already.
Again I cite that we’re probably reading from two different two-page letters, because this letter also says that they encourage me to advise my constituents that they call, and they have to initiate some obligation on their part. So this is a one-way letter, not a two-way letter, which I talked about. Communication. Communication works both ways. The Minister keeps reaffirming, “We do this,” but their letter proves they don’t.
Would the Minister look into this program and have a chance to maybe review this letter that she’s written to me?
Mr. Speaker, as I stated two days ago in referring to that letter, there is another paragraph in that letter which shows a very client-focused, case-management approach where any resident from the Northwest Territories who gets to go to any kind of treatment program, before they are discharged, are encouraged to work out an aftercare program. They have a say in who could help them with their aftercare and to stay in the sober-for-life program, whether they be friends, whether they be addiction workers, whether they be AA programs. They work out the package, and they work with the workers.
So in the broader terms we’re doing that. We are already doing that, and it’s very client- focused. It’s a two-way healing process. It’s a life-long process, and our government is with them all the way.
We again seem to be reading from a different letter, because the letter I have here says that they have to take individual responsibility, that it’s basically up to the individual. This one-way letter continues to cite exactly the opposite of what the Minister says; although the letter says that if they want to call, it even provides a phone number.
Would the Minister re-evaluate her department’s position on this? I’m telling you: everything she says referencing that it’s a two-way communication process is not in this letter.
Mr. Speaker, I’m not going to help the Member read that letter. The paragraph before the paragraph that he’s quoting, which he is reading out of context, I say again, speaks about case-management approach and two-way approach. The part that the Member is quoting is about the responsibility of the client to contact, but that is only a little part of what you’ll have to do, and that is a part of a client-focused and client-driven recovery program that is very, very important for anybody who wants to combat their addiction for life.
