Debates of February 18, 2005 (day 39)

We have a Telehealth system and I fully support that. It should go into the smaller communities so they receive service like any other communities in the Northwest Territories that have doctors coming to see patients on a daily basis. I guess I am asking the Minister if he would make some strong suggestions to have Telehealth in these small communities. Get it off the ground and get it going. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the Member’s comments. We will keep that in mind as we move forward with the Telehealth expansion.

Thank you. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess the way this budget is structured, all we do is give comments to these communities. I am not sure if the Minister can provide it today, but I am looking for some assurance that the communities like Colville, like Fort Good Hope, like Deline who already has Telehealth in their system, but I am not sure it’s being used to the extent it could be used, rather than have our patients wait or be delayed or not be sent out if they don’t have to be. How’s that? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I can commit to provide to the Member, through the Social Programs committee, the usage numbers for the Telehealth sites we do have, as well as the existing communities, those who are on the books for this year and coming years. I can show them what we are projecting with the funds we have available. I will commit to share that with committee. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to seeing the information from the Minister regarding the usage of Telehealth. Again, I fully support this government implementing Telehealth.

The other point I wanted to mention is the electronic pilot project that the department has invested into Great Slave Medical House in Yellowknife. I think that’s a real good indication of good money going into a good project like that. I know because when I was back in Tulita, the nurses were asking for my medical records and they were all over the place. So this would go a long way in terms of the small communities. When will we see a system like that going into small communities where our medical files will be on hand when we go into these small nursing centres? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to point out that we are working on this with Infoway, which is a national body. There is a national interest in every jurisdiction, plus the federal government, to move ahead on electronic patient records and health records. We’ve made the offer to Infoway, which we think will be accepted, to use the whole of the Northwest Territories as a pilot project where we can demonstrate a system that works not only in urban settings, but in remote settings. We have the distance, we have the geography, all the challenges that the larger jurisdictions have. No jurisdiction has been able to move this system outside of a facility. So we are working to move it across the Northwest Territories. The pilot at Great Slave is very important. If it tests out, then Infoway is partnering with us. We want to move this as quickly as possible. We would be a demonstration project basically for the rest of the country. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is my last point, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to the electronic project that will be happening in the Territories.

The last point I want to make is regarding the physicians in the Sahtu region. We have allocated some positions in the Sahtu. I guess the dollars will be spent by the Inuvik regional health board in terms of dictating or the decision-making with the Sahtu region. Do we wait until the Sahtu has set up the health board and from there they have some authority in terms of the physicians coming over to Sahtu? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the process has been for the CEO in the Sahtu to work with the CEO in Inuvik. They have been working not only on the delivery of services, but on being able to finalize the transfer of administration of services so that the Sahtu is basically self-contained. I understand that very recently, they believe they have reached the point where they should be able to do most of that transfer by April 1st. As the Member knows, we are going to be staffing the CEO position in the Sahtu. If we can fill the remaining few positions that have been left to run the administration, then the Sahtu will be, from an administrative point of view, self-contained and they will have the say over the resources, the two doctors’ positions and all the other related programs.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to say to the Minister that a few weeks ago I was in Norman Wells. It was really nice to walk into the office of the Sahtu health board. It felt like a regional office that has finally come to the Sahtu region. A number of people are already staffed in that building. I want to say thank you to the Minister for working hard on the government’s behalf and the people’s behalf. I will be looking at more of the programs coming into our region for health and social services. It’s a comment, Mr. Chairman, to the Minister. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My questions are with respect to the comment he made about the incidence of HIV in the Northwest Territories. It’s hard to reconcile that we could have such a high rate of unwanted pregnancy, such a high rate of STDs, so many other types of behaviours that would lead to these statistics, yet we could still claim to have no presence of HIV in the Northwest Territories. I would like to know if that’s what the Minister said. If that’s the case, what would be his explanation for that, given these other indicators? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I am not trying to minimize the HIV issue, but what the information tells us is that the highest STI rates put us at particular risk with the rapid spread of HIV. Since the first HIV infections were identified in 1987, 36 persons -- 30 males and six females -- have tested positive for HIV infection in the NWT. In 2003, four new cases were identified; a significant increase from previous years. Seven of the 36 HIV cases occurred in persons between 20 and 29 years of age. Seventeen of the 36 HIV/AIDS cases occurred in persons between 30 and 39 years of age. Given the long incubation period, infection may have occurred when some of these persons were teenagers. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think it would do us well to be extremely cautious not wanting to give people a false sense of security about the HIV risk. I know that I have heard it said many times before, given the indicators of behaviour that has some risk associated with it, given those indicators we do seem to have a proportionately small amount of reported cases of HIV. As the Minister mentioned, with the incubation times, we should be very cautious not to give people a sense of false security with respect to their risk of contracting HIV. Maybe we’ve just been lucky so far. I would like to ask the Minister what is in place for monitoring the incidence of HIV in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is one of the infections, maybe it’s a disease. It’s one of the infections that we deal with when we look at sexually-transmitted infections. When individuals are identified, then we try to stay aware of where they are, we try to monitor where they are moving to and we, of course, work with them about the critical need of not spreading the disease or the infection. Basically that would be the approach we take. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. How does the Minister and his department not know that there is not a whole lot more cases that have not been identified for HIV? Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There may be; the Member is correct. There may be cases out there that we aren’t aware of that haven’t reported in, who haven’t been sick enough or come forward as being part of any other kind of blood test or blood work that’s being done for other reasons. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So, in fact, we could have an epidemic of HIV out there and have no way of warning our people because we just don’t know. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the numbers I gave the Member are from the current information in the briefing book put together for this process and are the best numbers we have. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just don’t have much faith in those numbers, not that that isn’t a true and accurate reporting of what has been identified out there, but in terms of people who may be infected who have not come in contact with the health care system that require them to have any kind of testing or blood work done, I don’t put much faith in that number of 36.

The other thing I wanted to pursue a bit further was the move to change the name of STDs to STIs. The government has probably spent a lot of money to try to create awareness around STDs, so that would be a campaign that would have taken place as part of an attempt to limit the incidents of STDs through awareness and education, and to change the name from STD to STI seems to be counterproductive to creating that awareness because it’s a name that people wouldn’t recognize or understand. Is this something we did just in the Northwest Territories, or is this something that was done on a national basis? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In fact, it’s been done on an international basis. I just have some information here from the States, as well as the Public Health Agency of Canada, that speaks to the change of the name and I would be happy to share this information on what the thinking was and why the decision was made to do that.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. I would like to recognize the clock at this time. Thank you, Mr. Minister, and your witnesses, Mr. St. Germaine and Mr. Murray, for your attendance this afternoon. I will rise and report progress.

ITEM 21: REPORT OF COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE