Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier this summer the consolidated health and social services clinic opened here in Yellowknife. It is a great facility, Mr. Speaker. I have had an opportunity to tour the facility. I have had an opportunity to get into the background where all the clinic rooms are and we got to talk to the professionals who are going to be using those facilities, having a flow of people through and the types of services that are going to be provided on both sides, both the clinical side and the diagnostic side. Personally, I feel that there is a great opportunity here to help streamline the provision of health and social services here in Yellowknife.
I would like to take this opportunity to applaud the Minister, the board, Yellowknife Health and Social Services Board and all the staff of Yellowknife Health and Social Services who made this consolidated clinic a reality. However, with all new programs or all new facilities, there is always going to be that period of time where we are going to experience some growing pains. The consolidated clinic is no exception. I have had constituents come to me since the opening, who have identified some concerns they have had. One constituent identified that the doors into the main clinic, as an example, didn’t have one of the automatic buttons to allow wheelchair access, which I believe has already been dealt with. Other individuals have identified some frustrations on the diagnostic side, sitting in the waiting room and not have any staff to sort of direct them as to when they are going on. There has also been some frustration with the telephone system.
Later today I will be asking the Minister of Health and Social Services what kind of program they have put in place to deal with these concerns. The constituents and residents of Yellowknife are the ones utilizing the clinic. They are going to be the ones who are going to be able to best tell us where some of these deficiencies lie and help us solve these problems. I am going to be asking the Minister what system is in place for getting that information to the authorities so that they can address them and what type of transition plan do we have in place to help us get past some of these growing pains so this consolidated clinic we put in can do what it was truly intended to do. I will be asking some questions on that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
