Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to welcome as part of Bring Your Child to Work Day, Mr. Franklin Carpenter, formerly of Sachs Harbour, formerly of Inuvik and now living here in Yellowknife working for the NWT Housing Corporation. He’s here along with his son Will. Welcome to the gallery.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
I’d like to recognize a constituent from Deline, Mr. Peter Bonnetrouge, and also I want to recognize some of the fine staff members who work here in the Leg. who are in the gallery with their children.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d also like to welcome everybody in the gallery and, in particular, I’d like to recognize my constituents from Range Lake: Camila Barros, Chelsey Adams and Kelly Handley. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, wish to welcome everyone in the gallery. I’d like to specifically make note of a number of Yellowknife Centre constituents: Andrea Stewart, Keaton Hardisty, from the LeMay family I’d like to recognize James, Lisa, Jo-Jo and Ella. I’d like to recognize Kristy Samuelson and from the Kapolak family I’d like to recognize, Sam, Shayne and Susie. Finally, but not last, Billie-Rae Driscoll. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Welcome everyone.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize Allen Barret, David Ross, executive director of YKACL, Kiefer Dolphus, Lenora Barret, Michael and Shauna Henry, the Weledeh school student and all other members from the Weledeh riding. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, wish to thank all the people for coming today and welcome them here. I have a number of Frame Lake residents I would like to recognize. Firstly, Dave and Maureen Miller, Dave of CBC fame; and Jessica and Vincent Casey; Katie Miller and my constituency assistant, Kerry King. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bisaro. If we’ve missed anyone in the gallery today, welcome to the gallery. I hope you’re enjoying the proceedings. It’s always nice to have an audience in here.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In life at times we are very fortunate to meet someone special who shows up in our life to either teach us, give us a push or just to listen. Well, Mr. Speaker, I had that experience in my life, as well as many others too. I recently heard a good friend, Mansell Gray, passed away on October 22, 2010, in Hay River. He was surrounded by many of those he helped and by clergy who prayed for him.
Mansell came north in 1988 and worked in Fort Providence, Fort McPherson and, finally, in Hay River. Later on, in the ‘90s, Mansell was joined by his wife, Elaine, who has since passed. Mansell had numerous jobs throughout his stay in the North, but as an alcohol and drug counsellor he is remembered by a lot of people for helping them get sober, stay sober and live one day at a time. He was very active in the self-help movement in Hay River and the world. He was on 24/7 365 days a year.
Mansell was also active in politics. As a matter of fact, his daughter Deb Gray was once a former member of the Reform Party. However, it was the work with alcohol addictions that always returned him to the people he loved and now we say thank you, Mansell. A memorial service will be held in Hay River on November 6th at the Roman Catholic Church.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister responsible for Health and Social Services in follow up on my Member’s statement.
I know the Minister is supportive of respite. Her message in the House has been clear, both as a Regular Member and as a Minister. The Foundation for Change is clear: we plan to expand respite services in the Northwest Territories. But then in early October we were sort of surprised, out in left field, when all of a sudden we learned that the Yellowknife Association for Community Living respite program is being discontinued.
I’m curious; can the Minister of Health and Social Services help me understand how the political message about supporting respite, the political support for respite has not trickled down to the department and the authority, where the authority, Yellowknife Health and Social Services, has decided to cancel an important respite program here in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First of all, I’d like to thank the Members for Great Slave and Kam Lake for looking back in the record and reading statements that I made. I was, and I continue to be, an advocate for supporting persons with disabilities. I fought for and got the respite care program and I was grateful that the government implemented. As a Minister, I have worked to expand the respite program to communities outside of Yellowknife, and it is part of the Foundation for Change Action Plan.
Mr. Speaker, I do appreciate that there were some communications that really caused heartache to the families. I don’t think that was necessary, but it has happened. I’d like to just state my commitment to continue to support the families who need the respite care program. It is the intention of the government to expand. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, yesterday I was listening to the radio and there was a report on and there was a representative from the Yellowknife Health and Social Services who indicated that, basically, they’re offering families who need respite an opportunity to enter into a voluntary service agreement, a VSA. To me, this is an acknowledgement that respite services are needed here in the Northwest Territories. Even indirectly, Yellowknife Health and Social Services is recognizing that respite is required. Unfortunately, I don’t believe in any way, shape or form, requiring a family to enter into a VSA through the Child and Family Services Act, which is about child protection… These children aren’t being neglected. They’re not being abused. Their well-being isn’t in question. We’re talking about care of these children for short periods of time.
My question to the Minister is: Given that the authority has acknowledged the importance, can we get them to find some money within the authority or within the department to help actually fund a continuation of respite in this particular organization as well as the Territory as a whole?
I have talked to the Member privately and I’ve responded to any parents that I’ve had a chance to talk to recently, and I say it again, that the Department of Health and Social Services considers the respite care program a very important service, and that I’ve stated in answering questions to the Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins, on Monday, that we have a resolution that we are working on. The important thing is that we work together to get the support that the families need. I intend to do that and the government intends to do that as well. Thank you.
Sounds great. I’m happy to hear a resolution is in the works, but I obviously don’t know the details of that resolution that’s in the works. Does that mean that the Yellowknife Association for Community Living will continue to receive the $250,000 that they need in 2011-12 and ongoing to run the respite care program here in Yellowknife? Thank you.
Right now we have had, over the last number of years, two different care programs. We’ve had one in Yellowknife that the Member mentions and we have been running a pilot project outside of Yellowknife for smaller communities. The government would like to look at the whole program together, because the focus has to be in providing services to families who need the respite care program. I don’t think there is any question here about the importance, and advantage, and the benefit that those programs bring to the children and adults with disabilities and their families. I say it once again, that we are committed to providing a respite care program in the Northwest Territories and we will use the money we have in the budget and look for additional resources to continue to do that. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. Final supplementary, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Once again, I fully believe the Minister when she says she supports respite. I am happy to hear that they are planning to do something. I am going to continue to ask the Minister to commit to finding the $250,000 for the Yellowknife Association for Community Living. Will the Minister commit the $250,000 to keep this particular respite that serves 29 families in Yellowknife and offers high-quality programming and services to help these children socialize and integrate into the community and provide the needed relief to the parents of these children? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, the Member sits on the Standing Committee on Social Programs. The way we fund money and extra resources is to work through that. I intend to come to the committee with the details of that. The focus is to help the families who need respite care not only in Yellowknife but across the communities. We need to look at this program comprehensively. I am willing to do that. I am committed to do that. We have, in fact, increased the money on respite care within the department budget. We do need to address the program with YACL, and I am committed to coming back to the committee with the plan and I am committed, and I say that with everybody in the gallery, that we will continue to provide services to families who need respite care. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. What is the process in investigating incidents involving inappropriate health treatment? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have a standardized process in addressing complaints and concerns from our residents. They are to speak to the authority management first and then sometimes, or oftentimes it works its way through, upward to the deputy minister level. Mr. Speaker, if it is a complaint about specific conduct of a health care professional, whether it be a nurse or a doctor or therapist or allied health care professions, all of the professional governing bodies have a process on how to address complaints. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, what is the protocol communication between nursing stations and the RCMP when an injured person is examined and released into police care? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I am not familiar with the detail of how that works out. I will undertake to get more detail on that. I would need to consult with the Department of Justice. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I am concerned both with the quality of health care and the cost which should be looked at when it comes to the case described in my Member’s statement. I believe the constituent didn’t get timely care and had to fly around unnecessarily. Will the Minister order an investigation of this case? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, we could do that. I will undertake to look into that specific situation and get back to the Member. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. Final supplementary, Mr. Jacobson.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Minister for that answer. So how long, Mr. Speaker, would the investigation likely take to be completed? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, there is no set time, but I will make the commitment to review the situation and get back to the Member as soon as possible. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I indicated that there are about 238 adults 60 years and over in the Sahtu and most of these adults are determined by the communities as elders. I wanted to ask the Minister in terms of working with our elders in terms of how we close that gap in terms of providing adequate satisfactory services to our elders as there are some sections in the Foundation for Change that would speak to this issue in terms of programs and services that we could start implementing as soon as possible. Can the Minister give me an indication as to how soon we could start looking at programs and services for our elders in the Sahtu?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Foundation for Change is an action plan for the Department of Health and Social Services. It has a number of things that we need to undertake. But Members here know that we don’t necessarily have the dollars attached to that. The action plan guides our budget planning, capital planning and other decisions we make. We are working to implement the action plan as soon as possible, but the speed and the accomplishment depends also on the money available. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, ever since I have been in the House, I have been asking for basic requests such as providing traditional foods at Stanton Hospital for our elders. Stanton Hospital is 65 percent of our aboriginal patients there. I ask the Minister again, what is she doing in terms of this simple request. I don’t think it will cost too much to have it here at Stanton to provide traditional food for some of our elders that come here for some length of stay. When can the Minister give me a solid answer in terms of this simple request?
Mr. Speaker, on that issue, we have been seeking guidance from the Elders Council of the Stanton Territorial Health Authority. In fact, I talked to the chairperson at noon at an event. He has some proposals to make. We will work with them in where they want to go in terms of addressing better meeting the needs of a large number of aboriginal patients that we serve at Stanton. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I have been here for seven years. It has been an issue ever since I became a Member of this House here to talk about some of the issues at Stanton in terms of traditional food. The Minister now is responding to the request. I hope that this request can be implemented by the time we finish our term here. The Minister is right in terms of elderly care in our region is costly because of the travel and the training and the dollars to go up there. I want to ask the Minister in terms of providing care in our communities in the Sahtu. Again, the example yesterday in Deline and other communities that I represent that need respite care, palliative care for our elders so they can stay in their communities. Can the Minister, through the assessment of the Foundation for Change, start implementing some programs that would give the support to the elders as soon as possible?
Mr. Speaker, earlier today in Members’ statements, almost every Member spoke about the need for respite care, whether it be for persons with disabilities or elders. We have a lot of people not just in Yellowknife as we know of, but we have a lot of individuals in our small communities who need assistance in a similar way. This is why the Department of Health and Social Services, over the last three years, has created and expanded a respite care program for communities outside of Yellowknife. What we propose to do is I would like to have one territorial respite care program. We are going to work in conjunction with our partners and we will work out the details and come to the Standing Committee on Social Programs. Dollars are limited. We need to maximize the use of our resources and I look forward to getting support from the Members on the other side as we move forward on a territorial respite care program. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister talked about a territorial-wide approach to respite care. Would the Minister entertain with her Cabinet Members as to how we can support families that are on call 24/7 who are basically supporting their loved ones? How can we support them in terms of putting together a solid program that would see that they would get some relief and some support in our smaller communities where some of them have to go to work after a week of taking time off? We need to get some good support in our communities. I ask the Minister if she will look at all possibilities where we can get support for families.
