Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to follow up from my Member’s statement today with questions to the Minister of Health and Social Services. In my statement I pointed out the almost universal improvement in departmental claims experience, including the Department of Health and Social Services which dropped from 39 percent of claims down to less than 1 percent, but with the prominent exception of our health authorities, including Yellowknife and Stanton and with the exception of the Sahtu, which has stayed very low.
Is the Minister aware of this situation and is it being treated as a priority concern of his department? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I am aware of the situation. We are doing what we can to address the situation with the extra costs and so on, recognizing that providing health care service in an environment like a hospital is a lot different than maybe other departments that are operating from 8:30 to 5:00. Thank you.
Thank you. Actually, the hospital is relatively low compared to those authorities that don’t have hospitals, but the Department of Health may not exercise individual operational control of the health authority, but perhaps they do. However, ultimately we must hold the Minister responsible for their funding and oversight. So, obviously, the substantial failures here in reducing claims experience have a negative consequence of large penalties that the GNWT must pay.
Can the Minister confirm that helping the authorities control these costs is not only in the interest of but ultimately the responsibility of Health and Social Services? Mahsi.
Thank you. Working with the health authorities and the department, there are many strategies in place to mitigate the risk including training staff programs to return to work for injured staff, and also putting in the occupational health and safety committees in all of the authorities to try to address this issue. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister for those comments. The essence of the problem here is that the Minister’s department has made an exceptional turnaround in the claims experience and yet the authorities are not. I’d like to ask, is this a confusion of lines of authority here? What are the lines of authority to deal with this issue? Thank you.
The information I have is that the largest number of claims, not based on change in the percentage, but the largest number of claims is at Stanton where there’s a hospital; the Beaufort-Delta, where there’s a hospital; Fort Smith where they have a health centre and acute care. So all of those areas have successfully passed accreditation by Accreditation Canada. So they have the standards, they’re good standards, they meet the standards and this ensures that there is rigorous safety procedures in place. A big part of passing that accreditation is to have those types of safety procedures in place. Thank you.
Thank you. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister, I think, is correct, according to the information I have. Stanton is the highest at 20 percent, but there are others that are high, as well, and the trend of all of them is to go up from five to 20 times the percentages over the last four years.
I’d still like clarity on what the lines of authority are for dealing with this. Is it that the Minister has no authority or thinks he has no authority? What is he doing to exert his responsibility, as the Minister, to get training programs in place that result in the sorts of progress that we want to see?
I think I have the authority to make changes here. I have no doubt in my mind. But the housing authorities are working on it. That’s the thing. We conduct safety surveys with Workers’ Compensation Committee on a regular basis. They do audits on a regular basis with the authorities. I’m not sure this is an issue of authority. I think it’s an issue of how to address the problem.
We have a situation where we’re providing 24/7 care. You can’t go home at 5:00. The hospitals have to keep going. We are in an environment where we’re operating 24/7, 365 days a year, and in addition to that we have one-third of all the public service working in the Department of Health and Social Services. The numbers are high and it’s something we’re aware of. It’s something that we are trying to address. We do have discussions with the authority.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
