Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in my Member’s statement today I was raising issue with what I define as a poor usage of health care dollars, and I certainly hope it’s not a fact that people don’t care about the usage of health care dollars. But, Mr. Speaker, the management and the organization of these health care dollars seems to be a bit of a challenging question here.
Mr. Speaker, I’d like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services what has she done from the point of view of the context of waste busters to ensure that we’re getting the best value for our health care dollars before we start implementing changes to supplementary health benefits. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Before I answer his question I need to correct some of the things that he stated. First, that somehow through private insurers the government can charge any companies for providing core service. In Canada, the Canadian government and the provincial and territorial governments are responsible for core services and we couldn’t recoup that from a private insurance company. Any private insurance company that offers benefits will be supplementary to the core service.
Secondly, that Nunavut residents have a prior service. That is misleading, Mr. Speaker. All the governments across the country -- and I’m not saying intently, I just want to correct the facts -- all provinces and territories have an agreement with each other that we treat other provinces. That’s part of the Canada Health Act; it speaks to portability and that if somebody from Nunavut walks in, we will take care of them. We get great service from Alberta, but I don’t think we would state that NWT residents would get better service than Alberta. It is part of co-management of health care service and to state that we’re using our money to give prior service to Nunavut would not be correct.
Thirdly, supplementary health benefit changes are now there as a cost-cutting issue. It’s not there to make up money that we are losing from providing services to Nunavut or insurance. That is completely incorrect. Supplementary health benefits are being reviewed not to reduce the package. We are keeping all the benefits that are there, which is more generous than any other parts of Canada, but that we are looking at streamlining the access, which is very important, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, streamlining access sounds like a reduction of services to me. I’m not sure where the Minister...how she understands it that way.
Mr. Speaker, when I referred to Nunavut services as a priority, we send our team professionals here, whether they’re physio or speech, to places in Nunavut and that makes their clients more of a priority when we have people here not getting full services. On top of that, it’s a billing issue.
But, Mr. Speaker, my question, as stated before, and I’ll ask it this way: Mr. Speaker, again, we’ll have a difference of opinion on reduced services or money, but the fact is, supplementary health benefits has been articulated over and over and over. Again, we can’t afford to keep paying that. So what work has been done by the Minister of Health and Social Services and her staff to find all the wasted money that we’re spending on the issues I’ve raised today, Mr. Speaker?
Mr. Speaker, I don’t know what he means by wasted money. Our government makes the investment of $326 million on our health care services, the services that our people need. People on the ground are working 24/7 to deliver the care that people need. Special services that we provide to Nunavut, those specialists work on contract with the GNWT and sometimes they have contracts with Nunavut. So I don’t think, you know, it doesn’t help the debate to mix up apples and oranges and throw out statements saying that we are wasting money.
With respect to supplementary health benefits, I believe that the government has put out the public discussion paper, we are engaging the public widely, and I am interested in hearing from the public as to how we could go forward. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we charge WCB for cost and injuries, so why don’t we consider that? Mr. Speaker, we send people out to Nunavut and don’t get paid for the contracts. We know that for a fact. Mr. Speaker, we spend at least $200 a minute in health care in our Northwest Territories, and the reality is…
Do you have a question, Mr. Hawkins?
The reality is we’re making doctors manage. Why aren’t we looking at those issues to save money in our system rather than cutting away at supplementary health benefits?
We bill for the services that we provide to Nunavut. Once again, supplementary health benefit discussions are not about cutting services in supplementary. We continue to and will have one of the best, if not the best, Supplementary Health Benefits Program anywhere in the country. We will continue to do that. The way the rules are written are quite outdated and the user profile shows that we need to look at other considerations such as affordability to pay, as one of the factors in determining who accesses this very generous and important program that we offer.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. Final supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe the Minister is completely incorrect in us being able to bill insurance companies for services that they are rightly responsible for. I’d like to hear the Minister on how she defines reduction of services for supplementary health benefits is not considered cutting services.
It is, once again, incorrect for the Member to say that we do not bill private insurance. I just said that there are some things that the government has to provide that nobody else would pay. So you wouldn’t bill somebody for something that they wouldn’t be paying in the first place.
Supplementary health and entire health and social services sustainability is very important. As I’ve stated before, the Government of Ontario projects that they are going to be spending half of their entire budget on the health and social services system. We as Canadian people and NWT residents need to look at what we are doing with our program. I want to say that we are doing really well in the Northwest Territories. We’re not talking about reducing services; we’re talking about examining what we do and what we can do better. Foundation for Change is an action plan and supplementary health discussion is part of the discussion that we’re going to have with the people.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Justice and it goes back to my Member’s statement where I was talking about the need for a clinical psychologist at our largest correctional facility in the Territory, the North Slave Correctional Centre, which happens to be located in my riding.
It doesn’t take long to understand that if you do not have the required services of a clinical psychologist on staff at that centre, eventually what that is going to do is compromise public safety. I’d like to ask the Minister today why we do not have a day-to-day clinical psychologist on staff at North Slave Correctional Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister responsible for Justice, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. We do have contacts with the Alberta Hospital when it comes to assessments. Not only that, we do have a staff on hand that is a counsellor training to be a psychologist in that respect within a year. Once that individual obtains credentials, that individual will fulfill that position. It’s a current position that we have. We are making progress in this line of work. It has been taking some time, but we wanted to find the right individual with the right credentials to fulfill the position. We are moving forward on this.
In order to be a clinical psychologist you’ve got to spend seven to eight years in university. I don’t know how the Minister can suggest that a staff person out there could get the requisite training in a year to perform those types of duties. That makes absolutely no sense. I’d like to ask the Minister, if they’re making progress, why did it take 11 months for this recent sex offender to get a psychiatric assessment done in Alberta? It took 11 months. I’d like to know why.
I cannot comment on specifics to this inmate because it’s before court proceedings. However, I can speak to the process itself. Since this process came to our attention, it is the responsibility of counsel to notify the RCMP, which in this particular case did not happen for various reasons. At the same time, we deal with Alberta Hospital. At Alberta Hospital there is a long wait list which Alberta Hospital provided to our attention as well. We have to keep in mind that there is a new process in place since the issue came to our attention. Copies of the psychiatric assessment are to be sent to RCMP, Alberta Hospital and both counsels so that we can have an efficient and effective way of dealing with these matters to remedy the situation. We are also developing a new protocol to work with Health and Social Services, my colleague Ms. Sandy Lee, on identifying the beds that are available. We are making progress in this respect.
I thank the Minister for that. We haven’t had a clinical psychologist on staff at North Slave Correctional Centre for at least the past 18 months. I’d like to ask the Minister, the decision to not have a clinical psychologist on staff, was that a budget decision or an operational decision that was made?
When we had to make a decision at that time, it was strictly an operational one that we made last year.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m just wondering if the Minister is able to let us know how many more inmates currently on remand are awaiting psychiatric assessments and how long they’ve been waiting.
I need to go back to my department and the court ruling. We can probably provide a number. So we can certainly provide those numbers. Whatever we can share with the Members we will.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My Member’s statement had to do with mothers and grandmothers. I want to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services, I know the previous government had a council of grandmothers and I thought that was a wonderful idea. I want to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services if that’s something she would be interested in initiating or looking at, having a discussion on starting up the council of grandmothers again with this government.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was here when the former Minister of Health and Social Services, Mrs. Groenewegen, came up with the idea, which I thought was a great idea until it got outside of the building. Then we ran into problems because there are lots of people out there who feel that they’re grandmothers should belong to this group. Of course, we can’t have all the grandmothers meeting in a group all the time of that size.
My approach has been to work with the NWT Seniors’ Society, which is a group made up of elders from across the Territories, big and small. There are about six, seven or eight members who meet at the same time. They have invited me quite regularly to talk to me about seniors’ issues that they are working on that they would like me to work on.
With the council of grandmothers and the NWT Seniors’ Society, that is apples and oranges. I want to talk more about the oranges as the council of grandmothers and their value. Would the Minister consider, besides identifying the problems, what opportunities or positive things you can see that could come from a council of grandmothers to guide us in the Assembly.
I’m not sure if those are apples and oranges or peaches and cream.
---Laughter
The NWT Seniors’ Society is made up of Mr. Tom Wilson as president, from Fort Simpson, and Florence Barnaby, Bea Campbell, and we had a new member from Tuktoyaktuk that was appointed, and Eileen Collins from Hay River, and Leon Peterson from Fort Smith. They are really well-regarded and well-respected grandmothers and grandfathers from all over the Territories. It is a really good group.
I certainly agree with the Minister about the NWT Seniors’ Society representatives. These are grandparents from across the Northwest Territories. I do want to focus on a council of grandmothers. Grandmothers have a special role in the community and lives in childrearing and bringing up the children and laying out the foundation. Does the Minister have a willingness to look at even one from each region in the role of a council of grandmothers during this Legislature or even with the department? Would the Minister be interested in seeing if this is an initiative she would undertake?
On the substance of it I do feel that’s what the NWT Seniors’ Society and other elders that we work with I believe fulfill that function. If the Member has a more specific proposal or idea that he wants to discuss further, I’d be happy to sit down with him and listen to him and perhaps other Members. But there is no question that in our day-to-day work that we do rely on elders, not only grandmothers but grandfathers and leaders of our communities, to help us do our work.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In follow-up to my Member’s statement today I was talking about the fact that in the Northwest Territories it is natural, it is common, and it is a good thing that family members, extended family members will intervene in a situation where a child may be at risk, a family may be in crisis. It is not always the government that has the opportunity to observe or respond to those kinds of needs. The problem is that when someone does this on their own initiative, it then absolves the government of having to take any responsibility for the situation. The reality is it costs money and takes resources to care for a child.
I’d like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services what recognition do the policies of the Department of Health and Social Services place on the intervention and care that are provided to extended family members by grandmothers, aunties, cousins, when a child is in need outside of their own home. What recognition does this department give to those care providers?
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In our policy and practice we give a lot of recognition to family members, extended families. As much as possible we would like the extended families involved. In fact, there are many children in care who are being fostered by extended families and relatives. We do pay them, as we would any other parents or families who take care of the children on a short-term basis or long-term basis. Without knowing the specifics of what the Member is talking about, I can’t get into the details and we wouldn’t do that here anyway. In general, we do recognize family members to a significant degree.
For the benefit of the people who are listening to this, and I would like to understand a bit more what the process is, if a family member becomes involved in the care of a child and that is not through a formal apprehension of that child, how would the caregiver go about finding the support of this government to act in that role?
When a family who is going through distress or, for some reason, are not able to provide safety and protection to a child, the social workers will work to see where else they can find support within the community. They would look to the extended families like grandparents or aunts or any other family members that could give that support. Obviously, we have more stats for those children who have to be taken out of the family setting and we would first look to extended families to take care of those children. We would look for families within the community and when they are assigned with those families, we would provide financial support for the families who would take care of their extended families. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, it’s interesting, because I have been approached over my years as MLA many times by grandparents, particularly, and in the case of a person I met with on the weekend, it was an auntie who felt that they had to take it upon themselves to intervene in a situation for the safety of a child that was related to them. How subjective is the need for intervention on the part of child protection workers? How subjective is that grounds for intervention? Thank you.
The standard is the best interests of the child. We know that a lot could be put into that, but whenever a child protection worker intervenes, they have to justify and answer for it and there are a group of people that are working on that. I think, in this case, what would be helpful is if I could have a private discussion with the Member. Perhaps this family is not aware of all the support that they can get, and I’d be happy to work with the Member to help this family if we can. But, really, I am aware and I could give the Member stats on the fact that our system really works to work with extended families in providing support to the children in need. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As outlined in my Member’s statement, it appears to me as though the Minister of Health and Social Services has strayed from the path agreed to by Members to conduct a review of the potential redesign of the Supplementary Health Program. I’m wondering if the Minister could please outline for us what type of consultation was held with stakeholders prior to the department gathering and distributing the research information they provided to the public on February 22, 2010. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Minister responsible Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I’m aware that the staff have done a lot of work to prepare for this public discussion with the public. We have looked internally to partners in the Department of Finance and Stats Bureau to get information. They met with the public advisory group a few times and we have put out the public discussion paper at our earliest possible opportunity so that the public will have an opportunity to put their full input into this process. Thank you.
The motion to do this review happened well over a year ago. I noticed that the Minister points out that they spoke to the advisory group, which I understand is a GNWT. I didn’t hear any reference at all to actually meeting or talking with the stakeholders, the seniors, the NWT Council of Persons with Disabilities. So I’d like to thank the Minister for confirming that they didn’t, in fact, do that.
I see zero evidence in any of the information provided by the Minister that the Department of Health and Social Services conducted any research into the possible effects of proposed changes resulting in people leaving the North with respect to the changes that may come forward. This research was clearly requested in the motion. I was wondering if the Minister could please tell me why this information was not collected or considered and why the potential ramifications of residents leaving the NWT are not included within the document released on February 22, 2010. Thank you.
Just to correct the Member’s statement, the public advisory group that I was referring to is a group of NGOs, and that includes the NWT Council of Persons with Disabilities, YWCA, the Centre for Northern Families, Yellowknife seniors and NWT seniors. So, meetings were held with those groups. There was internal working groups of DMs and appropriate resources within the government so that we could pull information together that could help with the public discussion.
The Member is asking, did we look at the analysis of changes. That’s something that we could do and if the Member knows that the final product or as we work through the product, whatever that may be, will be reviewed by the standing committee and the Members here. The Member is saying that we have everything worked out; we have not. We have, I think, the research points us into a certain direction. We want to put that out to the public. The public has a chance to explain to us. And without knowing the final product, I’m sure we’ll be criticized if we went out with some other information. So I think the important thing is that we need to have this discussion. The Members will have a chance and we should let the process unfold. Thank you.
Just for the record, the individuals I’ve talked to who are in that working group have indicated that they were basically told what the department is going to research and what’s going to happen after that. They weren’t actually encouraged to do what the motion suggested, which was to give alternate areas of research, give alternate opinions, alternate thoughts, so that when this information comes out, as it’s coming out now, it should come out complete; meaning that we should have all sorts of options and things to consider.
The Minister says that the research does point in a certain direction, and clearly it does. We want to make an informed decision here. We want supplemental health to be the best it can be for everybody in the Northwest Territories, which means we need information on both sides. I was wondering if the Minister could please tell me how can we make an informed decision in the absence of information or, worse, with only information suggesting one side or leading in a particular direction. We need both sides to make the right decision on supplementary health. Thank you.
