Debates of February 2, 2010 (day 20)

Next I have Ms. Bisaro.

Wendy Bisaro

Frame Lake

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have a question here relative to a new committee that was established recently, the Territorial Admissions Committee. It’s a recent committee and I wondered two things relative to it. The information states that it’s for application admission to NWT long-term care facilities. I wondered, first of all, if the Minister could advise what sorts of facilities are included in the long-term care facilities. Thank you.

The Minister of Health.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It includes all of the long-term care facilities in the Territories. Those would be ones attached to long-term care facilities in Simpson, Fort Smith, Hay River, the assisted living facility, the territorial dementia facility. We have a number of long-term care facilities in Inuvik. I can’t remember all of the names, Joe Greenland, the long-term care facility they attached to the Inuvik Hospital there is a long-term care facility for persons with severe physical and mental disabilities in Inuvik actually, that’s part of it. The territorial dementia centre is the only program, actually, that’s delivered by a third party. But all of the long-term care facility admissions will be reviewed by this committee. Thank you.

Wendy Bisaro

Frame Lake

Thanks to the Minister. You didn’t mention Aven Manor here in Yellowknife and it also is a long-term care facility, I presume. I’m somewhat concerned, I guess, that the territorial dementia facility is a very specialized facility. It is long-term care, yes, but it requires… Patients in there have very particular needs and they can’t be accommodated in just any long-term care facility. So I’m a little bit concerned that the dementia centre has been included in the definition of long-term care facilities.

My other question has to do with the success or failure; I presume its success to date. But I wondered if I could get the Minister to advise how the Territorial Admissions Committee is working, whether or not it’s seen to be successful and have there been any difficulties. Is it working as it was intended? Thank you.

Deputy Minister Meade.

Speaker: MS. MEADE

Thank you. I’ll speak first to the issue of the inclusion of the dementia centre. The dementia centre, first, is a territorial resource and so it is important that all residents who may be considered for that kind of placement are considered equally. They also use the expertise around the type and whether the person is truly ready for a dementia centre and what their care needs would be. So that assists with the referral. Many people transition from long-term care into dementia, but a lot of people would be referred to a dementia program when they may not need it and may be managed in a different type of care centre, at least on a transition basis. So it is about seniors’ care, a continuum of care and needing the expertise, and also for managing the resources on a territorial basis. Part of that will also help us assess whether, in fact, the programs are, in fact, with the right staffing and with the right training to be able to deal with this kind of potential, or this kind of population, because it’s certainly, as the Member has said, a unique and more difficult population to manage in a high-quality care way.

As far as success, the issue has been we’ve had… I don’t have the numbers, but in most cases these placements through the committee have been appropriate, they have been well received. Where we have had questions, they have gone back and either provided more information. So I think at this point we only have one individual who has been rejected from one facility that is in debate.

The issue, in general -- and I won’t go on much longer -- but you classify your long-term care residents, and sometimes the issue is the residents, the facility may feel that it has too many higher needs at one time, and so they will wait to take a person until they have lower. So the difference between twos and fours is how we rank them, and some of it is less about the actual person at the time and more about timing and what’s in the mix. Thank you.

Next, I have Mr. Bromley.

Bob Bromley

Weledeh

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A quick question on the grants and contributions. I see the HPV vaccination program funding has faded away and I just want to know whether that has been picked up fully by us now and is it, sort of, a maintenance program where we’ve got the base out there and is that part of one of these expenditures? Thank you.

Minister of Health, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That was the arrangement with the federal government. They gave us the start-up money, but we are responsible for following up. When we approved this program we put that into the calculation. Thank you.

Bob Bromley

Weledeh

My other question here is under contract services. I see a 50 percent decline there. I note it bounced up the year before. Is there a ready explanation for that that the Minister can share? Thank you.

Mr. Elkin.

Speaker: MR. ELKIN

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The reduction in the contract services is primarily due to the patient wait time guarantee trust sunsetting, as well as some one time funding related to the HMIS project costs for last year through IT. But primarily the patient wait time trust guarantee.

Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I want to ask the Minister in terms of the home care duties. I know Colville Lake has been after the regional health board to see if they would work on arrangements between the band and the health board authorities. I know the Minister is also responsible for this, to see if the band would take over the work, the contract, to do home care services in the community of Colville Lake. I know this is important and Colville Lake has been active for a long, long time. It’s one of the issues they have been asking me to see if we can get results. It seems very simple, but somehow it becomes very complicated. So I want to ask the Minister if there is some direction she can give to her officials to sit down with Colville Lake and hammer out an agreement with home care services. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister of Health.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This issue was brought up during our visit and I believe we’ve looked into this, but right now I can’t remember what the exact details were. Home care services are important to us and it depends on the needs of the people we need to serve, as well as the part of the training and support that home care workers need. So I will undertake to revisit that file again and see what we can do there. Thank you.

Norman Yakeleya

Sahtu

I look forward to the Minister reopening this file here and looking at the issues. I hope the Minister will be able to inform me as of her plans, so I can work with her in the community of Colville Lake to look at this important issue. It’s very important for the people of Colville Lake to have home care work done by their own people. They have been looking after the elders for a long time, so I hope some of the training requirements won’t get in the way of, naturally...could look after their own people.

The other thing I would ask the Minister is if she would look at a community health nurse in terms of a policy when they are there to look after people and the issue I brought up earlier in the House in terms of intoxication. It’s a practice that they have to look at certain factors, but it’s not a policy. So they have the discretion to say yes or no. The policy will be in place when you have someone come in for health care services for whatever injuries they have, providing there is a safety mechanism in place to have that person looked at. Not make it a practice, but make it a policy. I would ask the Minister if she would consider a policy for the health centres.

This is not something that’s been brought up to me before in detail, so I would like to... I need to undertake to look into that further. I understand that the Member wants us to set up a policy saying that no person should be refused service. I think that’s what he is saying. I think we are looking at probably some provisions under labour work where workers do have a right to consider some safety issues. So there is some balancing of interests here. I think it might be more complicated than it sounds on the surface, but I will commit to look into this further and consult with my counterpart Minister McLeod and see what we can do there. We can look at the policy and guidelines and such. I’ll get back to the Member. Thank you.

Norman Yakeleya

Sahtu

I certainly appreciate the efforts going into this issue.

Mr. Chair, the last issue I want to look into is regarding program delivery support. You can correct me, Mr. Chair, in terms of when there are issues of complaints filed towards our health profession, usually it’s the staff member in the health office that does the investigation, that handles the complaints. Sometimes it can be perceived as a biased report or reporting on the issues. I would like to see some consideration going into a formal complaint process where an independent person outside the system can take an objective look into the issues and make a report or recommendation to the health boards in regards to certain issues that are happening in our communities. Almost like someone who can advocate for the communities regarding complaints that are legitimate, in my view.

Currently the arrangements are that each authority is responsible for receiving complaints and investigating them. I am in the process of developing a list of a person responsible for handling complaints within each authority and put some guidelines and standards to that process perhaps to make sure that people feel they have a place to go to when they have issues about the services they receive. That there’s something clearly set out, information about what they can raise issues on and how that will be followed up.

Stanton has a pretty well-established process in that regard, but not everybody has that. So we are in the process of working on that. Now, if people have very specific issues about a nurse or physician, they do have the option of registering complaints against their professional bodies, but that is a more formal process and they have very set guidelines in that. At the moment there’s not a set process where these complaints could come right up to... You know, I hear all the complaints and I try to do the best that I can, but there’s no formal process on that. Thank you.

Report of Committee of the Whole

Speaker: MR. SPEAKER

Can I have the report of Committee of the Whole, please, Mr. Krutko.