Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. For that we’ll go to Ms. DeLancey.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The work continues on the service partnership agreements. They have not been fully developed. I don’t believe it’s any surprise that the work had to slow down while many of us were very involved in putting a lot of our resources towards negotiating collective agreements. But we have recently met with the Department of Human Resources. We now have a draft document and draft service partnership agreement. Our next step is going to be to put that draft through some ground-truthing with some of our staff, and then we are going to implement it on a pilot basis over the next few months and monitor to see how it works. We’re focusing initially on recruitment and onboarding of staff, because we want to keep this manageable until we have a chance to pilot it and see if what we’ve got is going to be sufficient to start tracking results.
I want to revisit the issue of governance. I mentioned it in my general comments. I am concerned. I know the Minister responded and he pretty much gave a summary of what exists where, but I want to say, again, that I am concerned that there’s not much opportunity for the residents of Yellowknife to have input into their hospital. I know it’s a territorial hospital, but it’s the hospital that Yellowknife residents use. The Primary Care Clinic is a good measure, absolutely, but the running of the hospital, Yellowknifer’s tend to take a bit of ownership of that hospital. It’s been our hospital for a very long time. I am somewhat concerned that there’s no intent, it doesn’t sound like, on the part of the department to get beyond having a public administrator for that facility. I am concerned that there doesn’t seem to be much opportunity for input from either Yellowknife Members from the House or from Yellowknife residents. There’s no, sort of, formal opportunities, I don’t think, for input into the hospital and how it works, and plans for the future and just all those things. I guess I would like to know from the Minister if, as he stated, there’s a PA at the hospital. Is that’s what’s going to be there for the foreseeable future or are there other plans to provide something different? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Beaulieu.
In general, the governance, if we move to all regional advisory boards, there will be a greater focus on the involvement of communities, and that is the intention on the Beaufort-Delta board at this time. For the Stanton, what we would like to do – and it’s something that we’re going to take back to Standing Committee on Social Programs – is to have the seven regional chairs or public administrators, in other words the Joint Leadership Council, oversee the operations at Stanton, in effect having a territorial type of board that would be responsible for the Stanton Territorial Hospital.
I guess that means, then, my opportunity for input as a resident of Yellowknife is limited to talking to the public administrator of Stanton or talking to the chair of the Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority. That’s the only input I have into what my hospital is doing or not doing or its future direction. Is that correct? Thank you.
The Stanton Territorial Hospital is a territorial asset and as all residents of the Northwest Territories will have equal access to Stanton Territorial Hospital, that process may be that way, and that is the plan. But at the same time, I must say that our intention is to bring our plan, our governance plan back to the Standing Committee on Social Programs before decisions are made. We also have ongoing discussions with the Joint Leadership Council before we make decisions.
I guess I want to say to the Minister that I urge that you rethink your plan. If you were to tell Hay River or Inuvik or Fort Smith that their centre was going to be – and think of Inuvik particularly where you’re putting an advisory board in place – if you tell them that theirs is a territorial body and they’re not going to have any input into it, I think they would be kicking and screaming to get to your door.
I feel really strongly that, yes, Stanton is a territorial asset, but where can I go for hospital services? I go to my local hospital which, yes, happens to be a territorial asset. There needs to be a greater opportunity for public input from Yellowknife Members into the operation of that hospital. I urge the Minister to rethink this plan. I think it’s being unfair to the city of Yellowknife.
I wanted to ask a question about – this kind of goes to the numbers in the budget and I know the Minister talked about – I mentioned earlier that there was, between the mains for 2012-2013 and the revised mains for 2011-2012, quite a drop in funding. I don’t think I heard him say what funds we are expecting. I think it’s like $5 million. I am not on that page right now. Could I get the Minister to tell me what funds we are expecting that will take us up to about the same value as the revised mains from 2011-2012?
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. We’ll go to Mr. Elkin.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The difference between the opening mains revised are the items we’ve gone forward traditionally for supplementary appropriation during the year. Those include expenditures such as southern placements of adults and children. The Canadian Blood Services, at the end of the year we know, we find out how much of their products we’ve used at the hospital and then we go for a supplementary appropriation at the end. Those are two of the major categories that make up the difference between the opening revised.
Thanks to Mr. Elkin. Another question in regard to numbers. From the information that I have, forced growth in this budget is about $5.9 million. The increase in the budget is about $4 million. That leaves a difference of about $1.9 million, which tells me that we are cutting something somewhere.
Could I get an explanation from the Minister as to where the difference of the $1.9 million… Forced growth is higher than the increase in the budget. Where is that $1.9 million coming from?
A portion of those are items that were previously voted and they were sunsetting. Some examples are the HPV vaccination program. The program hasn’t sunsetted but the draw on the program is reduced in the upcoming years so there’s a reduction to the budget.
As the Minister mentioned previously, the enhancing community services item will be coming forward later as a supplementary appropriation after the budget’s approved. Two items are related to group home contracts. We will again be coming forward during this fiscal year once we’ve evaluated the total costs of those contracts. Just some sunsetted items that we will come back for.
I have to laugh at our yes, we have this money, and yes, it’s less but we’re going to come back and ask for more. We hear this all the time. It would be nice if we could get a number and stick with that number for longer than five minutes.
The last question I wanted to ask has to do with shared services and I know that the department is working on it and is, I think, starting to institute some. Could I just maybe have that stated again? What shared services are in place now and what other shared services are planned and when would they start?
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. For that we’ll go to Ms. DeLancey.
Mr. Chair, obviously our health and social service authorities take advantage of some of the shared services that are in place for the whole government, so Human Resources is one. We have some authorities that take advantage of the TSC services. Among the authorities within this system, we have actually been working with a consultant over the last several months. Working with our authorities, we actually generated a list of something like 60 possible functions where there might be an opportunity for savings or efficiencies or better service if they were shared. The consultants have talked to every authority. They have given us an initial report that has identified some areas where we actually already do have shared services formally or informally. For example, laboratory information services is operated on a system basis. Purchasing of medical equipment is done on a system basis.
There were then some recommendations for some other areas that seem to lend themselves to a shared service approach. A couple of the top ones are procurement. All the authorities are doing their own procurement. Another one is accounts payable and accounts receivable. We are actually working with the consultants now to do more of a business case to see what those might look like.
In addition to recommendations for areas where we should go to actual shared services, they have also flagged some areas where we should at least promote a more integrated approach. Bed management is one amongst our facilities. We are already doing that to some extent for our long-term care centres. Another one is risk management, where every authority is trying to establish and invent their own approaches to risk management and we could probably get a much more effective and more cost-effective approach by combining resources. That work is ongoing and we do expect a final report later in the summer.
Thank you, Ms. DeLancey. We are moving on. I have Mr. Nadli next on the list.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have two questions, but I will just forego one in the spirit of trying to meet at least a timely transfer of closure here as we move on. I refer to the term “culturally appropriate care.” What does that mean?
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. Minister Beaulieu.
Mr. Chair, as we travel to the communities, many of the Aboriginal communities that we had gone to have indicated to myself and the staff that was travelling with me when they wanted to take a look at treatment. As an example, that we should be working with the communities to develop a model which meant that if there were families that needed treatment, if there was youth that needed treatment, that they would be going out on the land with the elders and that they would be essentially living out there on the land for a period of time while they address their addiction issues. We had indicated that we thought that they had used the term that we had to be culturally appropriate when we are trying to treat people.
Mr. Chair, I would like an update. I understand that we have an aging health centre in Fort Providence. I just wanted to see where it is at in terms of… I know there have been discussions in terms of a site and identification. I would like to get an update.
Mr. Chair, the Fort Providence Health Centre was built in 1970. The life expectancy is now up with that facility. There is a plan to replace that facility. We are planning on completing the study. Sorry; the study has been completed. The project is approved. It is in design this year. We are expecting to have it completed by 2015.
Committee members, we are on page 8-13, Health and Social Services, activity summary, directorate, operations expenditure summary, $7.924 million.
Agreed.
Thank you. Page 8-14, Health and Social Services, activity summary, directorate, grants and contributions, contributions, total contributions, $35,000.
Agreed.
Thank you. Page 8-15, Health and Social Services, information item, directorate, active positions. Are there any questions? There are none. Page 8-17, Health and Social Services. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I see here the page deals with maternal and child health, so I am assuming that early childhood development is one of the responsibilities within this program. What role is the department playing? What new programs are being put in place for early childhood development recognizing the priority that this government is putting on that this year? What role is the department playing in working with sister departments on the broader early childhood development programming?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Ms. DeLancey.
Mr. Chair, there is no new funding for early childhood development initiatives in this budget. I believe the Minister has spoken to our hope that we will be able to identify funding in the future to expand the Healthy Families program and at least into the Sahtu region. We are working very closely with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment on updating the Early Childhood Development Framework with an immediate focus on the family resource centres. We also have been lucky enough to recruit back our chief public health officer, Dr. Corriveau. While he was in Alberta, he just produced a major report on early childhood development. We hope to benefit from his research and expertise in that area to help inform our work with ECE. It is something that we recognize. Again, it is extremely important, and out of the work that we are doing right now with ECE, we hope to expand the existing program through the next business planning cycle.
Mr. Chair, thanks to the deputy minister for that information. What positions do we have that are dedicated to early childhood development in this department? Are they currently filled? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Beaulieu.
Mr. Chair, in the department we have one position, but most of the money to do early childhood development work is with the authorities, with the health and social services authorities across the North. I don’t have the detail of how many positions that constitutes.
Mr. Chair, just before my next question, does the Minister agree that early childhood development is a major opportunity and responsibility that we have, given our new considerable and new enlightening knowledge in terms of our prevention priorities in terms of health and many other broad government goals?
Mr. Bromley, if I can get you to rephrase that. It was more of an opinion question. If you can be more specific.
Mr. Chair, is early childhood development considered a priority by your department?
Yes, we recognize the benefits.
As a priority and recognizing the considerable amount of new information that’s available now – and the deputy minister referred to a really excellent report by Dr. Corriveau that does incorporate a lot of that information in a popular format -- is the department playing a role getting that information to authorities and helping them identify the opportunities in early childhood?
As we take a look at the delivery model again, many of the functions that are in the authority like the public health, Healthy Families and public health nurse and so on are targeted towards early childhood development and are part of their functions. A part of many of the positions in the authority are addressing the early childhood development. We will make sure that any information that we get as a result of having Dr. Corriveau back in our employment will be given to the health and social services authorities.
I appreciate the comments from the Minister. That sounds great. Just backing off to a little larger scale, what’s the format and the role of the department in trying to help our professionals and our service people keep up to date with new information such as the amazing stuff that’s coming out of early childhood research now? How does that work?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. For that we’ll go to Ms. DeLancey.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The department plays what’s technically usually called a ministry role, and so we do try to, to the extent that we have the capacity, we try to have subject matter experts on staff, and their job is, indeed, to do just what the Member’s talking about. So our early childhood development specialist would work with other headquarters departments to try to make sure that we are not siloed and that we’re coordinating on delivery of these programs, would try to keep on top of research, would organize training sessions sometimes at the department’s initiative and sometimes at the request of health and social services authorities. We do have professional development funding that’s available for our professional allied health professionals and nursing and physician staff throughout the system. They will sometimes pull that funding together and the department will try to bring in resources and expertise. The department tries to play a specialist role to the extent that we have the ability to do so, but a lot of the expertise does reside out in the authorities, and we do have a lot of great staff out in the system in the authorities that will play that role for one another as well. They don’t always wait for the department to do it.
Great information there. In terms of the less professional side of the equation, which is, of course, the seat of much of our early childhood development opportunities dealing with the public and community groups and young parents and other ways, parenting skills and whatnot that may be delivered by non-government organizations, is there a mechanism for the department to interact with them or is that left to the regional authorities? Thank you.
For the most part, the lead on interacting with residents and stakeholder groups at the community level is done by the authorities. The department, obviously, has a role interacting with some of the territorial non-government organizations. We do have a headquarters position that’s actually located out of Hay River that is working on developing community wellness plans and is engaging with a lot of those interagency and NGO groups at the community level, but most of that interaction would happen through the authorities.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. It’s all good information. I’m learning the process here more and more. So could I just get a commitment from the Minister – I’m sure he’s doing this already, but given this is a priority – that he will continue to explore all fronts on getting the expanded and expedited programs in early childhood as we learn more and recognize the need and opportunity? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Beaulieu.
Yes, I will commit to that.
Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Moving on, we have Mr. Moses. Sorry, Mr. Moses, Mr. Bromley has just a few seconds left, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I thought I’d indicated I had one more. I don’t hear a response to whether or not our one ECD position is staffed currently in the department.
Yes, it’s staffed.
Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Moses.
