Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d once again like to applaud the Minister of Health and Social Services for directing Stanton to establish an external review committee to conduct an independent review of the Leishman incident based on the motion that we passed in this House earlier this calendar year. I think it’s a great step.
I do have a couple of questions, Mr. Speaker, specifically with respect to the external review committee itself. I was wondering if the Minister could give me a bit of an idea of how many members are on this committee and what are their qualifications to conduct an investigation of this nature. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Mr. Michael Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. What we’ve done is bring in one very qualified individual, working under the guidance... They will have their arm’s length ability to do the work necessary, but brought in to work through the department. His name is Dr. Douglas Perry. He is a practicing emergency medicine physician, a senior health administrator from Alberta. He’s served as a senior provincial clinical advisor with Alberta Health and Wellness. He also has emergency medicine practice in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Misericordia Hospital in Edmonton. Thank you.
Thank you. So it sounds like the committee is one person, which is fine. That’s acceptable. I’m still happy that it’s getting done and it certainly sounds like this individual has a lot of qualifications. Has this individual conducted investigations of this nature in any other jurisdictions that we know of? Thank you.
Thank you. I understand he has engaged in this type of review before. I can’t tell the Member exactly where, but that’s one of the reasons he was asked to do this. Thank you.
That’s good news. That’s what I was hoping that we would actually hear. I guess my next question that follows in line is do we have a bit of a timeline on how long it’s going to take for this review to be done. This family has been waiting for a while and it’s something that happened well over a year ago, actually over two years ago now. So I was just wondering if we could get a bit of a timeline of when we can expect to see some results from this investigation.
I would hope to have this concluded by the end of June. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Your final supplementary, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My final question, I indicated and I understand the nature of the Evidence Act and how information is intended to be kept confidential certainly with respect to what any doctors or nurses will indicate during this investigation, but during my statement, or sorry, response to the motion, I indicated that, based on what I know and what I understand, I don’t believe it was a human error, I believe it was more of a policy issue and a protocol issue within the hospital. Under the Evidence Act we can’t be told anything that is done or said by the health professionals, but I’m curious why we can’t get information with respect to protocols. If there are protocols that are in error or insufficient, should that information not be available to us so that we can help make decisions in the best interests of the people of the Northwest Territories? So I guess I’m getting at the recommendations and how we get to those recommendations. Do we get to hear some of those pieces or those findings? Thank you.
Thank you. I’ve already committed to share the results of this review with committee. We’ll look at what those recommendations are, what they say and, as well, we’ll be able to review what he proposes as a response. We also indicated that we will have a separate meeting with Mrs. Leishman to as well review some of those findings with her, as well, so she can have some closure to the circumstances that she has been dealing with. So we will share that information with committee. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.
