Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I also want to raise some concerns with our health board, as Mr. Krutko has just talked about one of his communities. Mr. Speaker, in the last couple of weeks, actually the last couple of days and even this morning I received a phone call from one of my constituents and they were having some serious concerns in regard to the operation of our health board in terms of the professionalism that the staff at our regional health board has towards some of our residents in the Sahtu. I wanted to ask the Minister in terms of a type of review or look at some of these types of concerns that our residents are raising now in regard to our own health board. Is there a type of mechanism to look at the performance evaluation audits to see where we can head off some of these critical issues that are affecting the health care in our region?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe most of our health authorities try to do their best to deliver their programs and services on a daily basis, but there are times when questions like this come up. The way our board structure is set up, the boards of all health and social services authorities get their funding from the government, but they’re quite independent in the way they deliver programs and services. As a part of our initiatives -- and the Minister of Finance mentioned it in his budget speech -- I have been working with the committee on the Foundation for Change and part of the Foundation for Change speaks to improved governance, financial management, accountability for programs and services so that we are getting the maximum benefits from our investments and that there is a shared understanding of actual costs and benefits to the system. So one of the large tasks we have undertaken is to define better our financial and accountability arrangement by way of agreement, and that was in Minister Miltenberger’s budget today. This is a new exercise. We want to make it clear to the authority exactly what is expected, and, of course, we are working with the authorities so that they agree to this arrangement, because we see from Member Yakeleya’s question as well as Member Krutko that when we spend $326 million this year, that we want to see accountability and the results on the ground that both the authorities and we understand. I know authorities are working hard, but it may not be exactly what we set out to do and under the current system we don’t have that monitoring that we would like to do. Thank you.
Thank you. The Minister has made reference to the document she’ll be discussing. I’m looking forward to seeing the result of the Foundation for Change with the Minister in terms of going forward in terms of establishing... (recording difficulties)
...with the Member. We toured all of the communities in Sahtu. Leadership did speak to us about a working relationship and interaction with the local health centres as well as health board. I’ll do my part to make sure that our board and our health care delivery system is accountable to our people. At the same time, I did encourage the local leadership and Grand Chief Andrew that there is... At any time when the community leadership have concerns or questions about the services or lack of, or good or bad or the ugly, anything, I think health boards and health centres will benefit from that input and everybody should be encouraged to communicate to them. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I want to say, on behalf of the Sahtu people, that the Minister of Health and Social Services has been the only Minister that has done a tour with me in the Sahtu of...
Ahhh.
...so much that she has come twice to the Sahtu. I want to say that the people appreciate her to come and sit in and talk about these important issues. Mr. Speaker, we have some complaints, some serious complaints that are very serious to people in Deline, people in Fort Good Hope, people in Colville Lake. I want to ask the Minister when these complaints come forward, sometimes we have a backlash from the regional health boards in terms of staff members saying things that shouldn’t be said to the people in our communities. Would the Minister see that stuff like this doesn’t happen with our health board? People are afraid to come forward to launch or even to talk to me regarding health concerns, because sometimes they get feedback that isn’t very good from our health board.
Once again, I would like to say that in Sahtu region and every other region in the Territories, we do have very dedicated, qualified, skilful health and social services staff working hard to deliver programs and services. Mr. Speaker, I know sometimes things do go wrong. Sometimes people are not happy with the response they received with their medical treatment or medical emergency or counselling and one of the things that we are seeing that we need to improve on and that’s also part of Foundation for Change -- I’m afraid I’m going to have to mention this document a lot because it has lots of things to do with what we are working on -- one of the things we need to build more on is where do people go when they have complaints about medical health professionals that is independent, objective and not necessarily to the political force. That’s something we are working on as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I look forward to a solid policy where people can go and launch a complaint in their own language. Mr. Speaker, I’m speaking about this person in Fort Good Hope that went to the health centre. She was diagnosed about two weeks later with pneumonia. Mr. Speaker, that is unacceptable. We had a death in our community that should not happen. That is unacceptable. So, again, I look forward to a time when the Minister can outline a time where she can state in this House where policies on people with long-term complaints regarding health care can be tabled in the House.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. I didn’t hear a question there. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
