Agreed.
Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the guests into the Chamber.
Mr. Minister, can you introduce your guests, please?
Thank you, Mr. Chair. On my left, Debbie DeLancey, deputy minister of Health and Social Services; and on my right, Perry Heath, director of infrastructure. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. On my list I have Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Again, welcome to the Minister and to the department today. At the risk of not repeating much of what has already been said by Members, I would like to narrow my concerns to what I consider the areas of concern with the current Health infrastructure budget before us, and I’d like to shed some light on some of the practices that I believe are preventing efficient solutions from emerging or at least provide a transparent process for them to be achieved.
At first glance, given the amount of this budget and comparing this to the operational side of Health, I can attest that we have a very disproportionate budget before us when you look at that comparison to what I consider our overall fiscal framework. When we spend more for one kilometre of new road than we do for lifesaving programs, nurses or elders, I believe we have a problem of values, which puts into question our desire for a prosperous north.
I’d like to narrow my three areas of comments under three broader categories, the first of which is I’d like to kind of call it aging in place or the Aging in Place Strategy. As the government, this is a means to save money. I’m in full support of this initiative. I think it has merit, and we all know that it will reduce the amount of facilities or beds required. But when you look at this process of wanting people to age in their own homes and provide a support network, there’s nothing in this budget as to how and by what means this will happen. We have seniors today who would benefit from some form what I like to call transitional living or at least transitional living options, yet look at what we have for overall inventory to meet this demand and it’s not there. I can tell you, it’s getting worse with every passing day. We are getting older. This department really does not have any firm framework or plan to deal with what I consider a crisis that’s looming.
Clearly, we could be or should be establishing partnerships with the private sector and providing incentives for strategic investments and development. One only has to look south of the border to see that other governments have been doing so for decades and with much success. Again, I challenge this department and this Minister to find incentives, whatever they are, so that developers will see the benefit in partnering with the GNWT in mitigating our backlog of seniors waiting for viable options and for this type of transitional living.
Next I’d like to talk a little bit on the subject of Avens. I believe the Minister is dedicated in wanting to find a solution for the current Avens project to proceed on course. However, like many, including myself, what we’ve heard in the last day or so, I’m still perplexed why this department still is putting up what I consider roadblocks. I believe, in its basic form, this organization is merely looking for a memorandum of support so they can secure their funding, and I believe this is not a complex ask. It does not require three or four attempts to come forward with different proposals. I believe that the proposals have been genuine and I believe that the offer has been genuine, but the receipt and the opportunity for government to live up to its obligation has not been. I’m seeing nothing in this budget that will send the right message forward for the project designers of Avens, and I fear that we are continuously providing roadblocks that will delay which I consider probably a very critical and important piece of infrastructure not only for Yellowknife but for all Northerners and their families.
Finally, I would like to touch on Stanton and the current P3 initiatives. I believe the Minister recalls not that many days ago he and I were at the Stanton Hospital AGM, and he even reminded residents that were in attendance that this would come back on the floor of the House, so I’m here now not to disappoint the Minister. I know the Minister is not the lead on this project, but clearly the Minister must agree what he has heard thus far should concern him. If not, I’d like to remind him today in the House, and with all my colleagues present, at this AGM, every stakeholder that was there reminded this Minister there was absolutely no dialogue, no public meeting, there was no public substantiation or rationale for proceeding with the Stanton renovation project under the guise of what we now know as a P3 model. Nothing. So we must ask, why? Why did the government proceed in this way? Why the secrecy from public not to have a voice in what the Minister reminded us yesterday was being one of the largest and most expensive projects ever to hit our ledger in the GNWT?
I would like to remind the Minister we have a P3 policy and not P3 legislation in place, and I can assure the Minister that our current P3 policy has not withstood the rigors of success as being touted by our Finance Minister. For the sake of time, I will not table numerous examples of where our P3 has failed this government in the last 10 years or more.
Again back to the issue. When will this Minister take it upon himself to reach out to residents, to patients, to the frontline workers of our health facilities and to the general public to have a frank and open discussion on the Stanton P3 process and to those affected?
I know the Minister has been very frank on the other aspect of the privatization question. This was a huge question of concern for many residents. But as we heard yesterday in the House, and I quote from the Minister, “We will not privatize the delivery of health services in the Northwest Territories. We will not do it.” Those are his very words. Because, clearly, I have to represent eight very concerned Range Lake residents who are on pins and needles not knowing if their facility services jobs are going to be there tomorrow, I have to bring this question forward. I am there for them and I’m there for all the workers of the hospital system and their families.
Again, those are my general opening comments on this infrastructure budget for health.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the Member’s comments. With respect to the comment about a disproportionate budget, I do have to just remind Members, yet again, that Stanton is part of this budget, the Stanton renovation and renewal is part of this budget. It’s a $350 million budget and it’s the largest individual capital project that the Government of the Northwest Territories has ever undertaken. Granted, there is $40 million in this year, but it is part of a larger project, so we will be investing significant money in social infrastructure in the Northwest Territories.
The Member started off by talking about aging in place. Just to be clear, the Aging in Place Strategy is not about saving money but providing a full range of services to the people throughout the Northwest Territories who have told us time and time again they would like to stay in their homes and in their communities for as long as possible. This is about providing supports and programs to individuals to help them stay in their homes where they have clearly told us they would like to stay, and stay in their communities if they are unable to stay in their homes. To that end, we could talk about the partnerships we already have with organizations like the NWT Housing Corporation who has been very proactive and has moved forward on the construction of five independent living homes in communities throughout the Northwest Territories. Those have been mentioned several times, and those are in the communities of Whati, Fort McPherson, and I am actually blanking on the other three, but there are five communities.
When individuals are no longer able to stay in independent living units in their communities or stay in their homes, they move into long-term care beds throughout the Northwest Territories. Yes, there is a challenge. There are shortages of beds. We want to keep moving forward with the construction of beds, and to that end, we have. Shortly, we will have eight new beds opening up in Behchoko, eight new long-term care beds available to NWT residents. Then we will also be opening 18 new beds in Norman Wells, 18 long-term care beds that don’t currently exist within the system. We are also working with Avens to find a way to move forward and develop additional beds in the Avens complex. We have provided Avens with $25,000 to begin work on the development of a concrete business case. This is obviously the first step to move forward with a plan for the construction of additional beds in Avens. The goal of the joint working group, which is the Avens group as well as the department, is to develop a real concrete plan for how to move forward in the capital planning process if they choose to seek GNWT dollars to construct that building.
We have had a number of proposals come in from Avens, as many as four. They have asked us to look at financing through revenues on bed rates and possible inclusion in the extended care unit at Stanton. We did have a discussion with them as part of the Stanton renewal, building or constructing the extended care complex on their compound and make it available for long-term care for seniors in the Northwest Territories. There was money available for that project. It was something we were prepared to move forward, but to their credit, they stuck true to their mandate, which is seniors, and they were uninterested in moving forward. We are exploring lots of options and trying to be creative. They’ve also made formal requests to the department to lift the cap on bed fees. We’ve agreed to explore that option for extended care, to explore that option with them. They’ve come forward with a number of proposals and the Members that were talking yesterday highlighted a couple of those.
The key point is that the change in nature to these proposals has made it difficult for Health and Social Services to respond, and that’s why we set up this joint steering committee, so that we can work together and fully understand and develop a workable proposal. We will continue to work with Avens because we believe this facility is important. We believe these 29 new beds to the Northwest Territories are a step in the right direction. We will continue to work with them until we find a viable and functional plan that will allow us to make that happen. So, we are committed to long-term care beds in the Northwest Territories.
The Member also talks about the P3 project at Stanton, and I’ll say it again, we aren’t and we won’t be privatizing the delivery of health care services in the Northwest Territories. Moving forward, the GNWT does have a public P3 policy that requires all projects over $50 million to be renewed for delivery as a public/private partnership. As a result, a detailed feasibility analysis and business case was completed that clearly showed that delivery in Stanton under P3 would be the most cost-effective project delivery method. Delivering Stanton as a PC is anticipated to deliver significant value for money to the Northwest Territories and Canada, to be clear, is a mature P3 market with a robust P3 model that has been proven to safeguard the public interest and project delivery.
The Member talked about the eight positions. The eight positions are maintenance staff within the facility. It was suggested that those positions would become affected as early as June and I just want to be clear that that is not the case. There is still a giant ‘if’ around those positions whether or not maintenance services do become part of the P3 moving forward. That hasn’t been determined in any way, shape or form. Out of courtesy to the union, the GNWT gave them a heads-up that this was a possibility. We indicated that we may indeed conclude negotiations as soon as next summer, at which point we’d be in a better position to begin the discussion about how we will implement. The build is a six-year project. I imagine we won’t be done for six years, which means if, and I stress again, if positions are affected, it could be as far away as six years.
In a hypothetical scenario, if those positions are indeed affected and become part of the delivery model for the new facility, we will work with our staff and cooperate with the Union of Northern Workers to make sure that all of our terms and conditions of employment are applied and those positions and those individuals are working, or we work with those individuals to find them meaningful similar types of employment within the Government of the Northwest Territories. There has also been a suggestion that if, and I stress again, if those positions or those functions become part of the new delivery model that those individuals might be interested in working with the provider, we can’t guarantee that they’d be able to get placed with those, but we would certainly be willing to work with our employees and the provider to find ways to make sure that our employees, our most valuable resource, are protected and accommodated accordingly.
But I’ll also go to Minister Miltenberger to talk a little bit more about P3s. The Department of Finance is the lead on this project. As the Minister of Health and Social Services, my priority is making sure that we have a building that meets our clinical and functional need to provide services to the residents of the Northwest Territories while at the same time ensuring that our health and social services are protected and maintained. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister Abernethy. We’ll go to Minister Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Unless there are specific questions further to the fairly comprehensive response from Minister Abernethy, a lot of mine would just be a repetition. So, we could have that discussion. We do have the policy and we are setting up the P3 corporation. A P3 approach is recognized and encouraged in most jurisdictions, and in this case they’ve done the work, they’ve set a business case, we submitted that last March to committee and that says that the P3 approach is viable and makes sense. As Minister Abernethy said, we’re proceeding down that path. No final determination has been made and no contracts have been signed, but we’re definitely working down the path to that P3 approach. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Member, in his comments, also questioned or had some questions around communication. We do have a communications plan in place; we do have a website that individuals can go to, to get additional information. As we move down the individual steps, the lead department will be making sure that that information is public and made aware, and we will continue to work with our partners like the UNW if indeed any positions are affected.
Just in closing on this project, we know this is a massive project, the largest individual build that we’ve ever participated or led in the Northwest Territories. It’s the largest capital project. It’s going to bring significant dollars to the Northwest Territories for construction and operation. We anticipate that this facility, recognizing that it’s going to be bigger, that it’s going to have different infection control standards, that we are going to be improving the ability to provide emergency services and basically all clinical services. It’s a facility that’s going to be state-of-the-art. We also anticipate that we could have anywhere from a couple dozen to several dozen additional UNW positions required in order to operate and provide health services in that building, so more positions will likely, will definitely be coming as a result of this construction. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Abernethy. General comments. Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I won’t really get into the whole seniors and long-term care facilities in too much detail; we heard quite a bit over the last little while. But I think in terms of just looking for beds, a lot of discussions have been around beds. You’ve got to take it into consideration that we’re talking about beds, but we’re also talking about a safety issue for our elders, especially the ones in the small communities that might be enduring or experiencing things like neglect, elder abuse, financial abuse that we don’t see at the forefront. I think in some cases when we don’t have those facilities in the small communities, we do need to find them somewhere. Not only that, we do have a long-term care facility in Inuvik and it’s been fully utilized. What we don’t have is a dementia facility. So when we put our senior citizens into such a facility where now they’re dealing with people with dementia or other areas of mental illness, it does have an effect on these individuals that do try to live a more independent lifestyle. To have those beds or areas such as Avens, if they opened it up to more beds territorially, then that’s something we can look into supporting.
Just further on, there’s a lot of talk here around senior citizens, but something that I’ve always been pushing for and have a strong interest, obviously, is in the treatment area. I’ve made comments to the Minister about trying to find something pan-territorially that we can either use some kind of existing infrastructure to provide those programs and services not only to the Northwest Territories but to Nunavut and to Yukon as well. Within those treatment centres or even within the hospital that we have, detox beds are also, I think, very important to have in terms of helping people with those medical conditions when they’re coming off some very strong addictions.
We did get a tour of Hay River not too long ago and looked at their planning studies in the hospital there, and it was brought to my attention that they’re going to have two seclusion rooms in the hospital, which was great to hear. I know we were looking at getting one in Inuvik. I’m not too sure where that is, so maybe I could get an update on that seclusion room in Inuvik and whether or not that was something that was put in place.
One thing that hasn’t really been brought to our attention, but just in terms of our medical equipment, we send a lot of people down south for screening, for tests. I don’t know if the Minister did an inventory or looked at what kind of equipment we have here in Yellowknife or in the communities and looking at what we can do to modernize some of our equipment, whether it’s for screening, whether it’s for other medical purposes and trying to get those up to date, and that way maybe we would save on some costs on sending people down south. That’s something that’s more common.
He did mention infection control standards. Obviously, we have a dental office in the school in Inuvik that’s out of commission because of the new standards that were developed. I don’t know if you want to provide a list or look at the list of the standards that have been changing and doing an inventory across the territory to see how that’s affecting other areas of service that we do provide, whether it’s in the communities, regional centres or even here in Yellowknife, and whether that was addressed in this capital budget in terms of having to fix buildings up.
Lastly, just the sanitation components are something… I know the hospital was shut down for operations a couple of years ago for a lengthy period of time and people were put on long waiting lists. So just when we’re looking at infrastructure, whether we are building it or not, that it be taken into consideration.
One of my colleagues tabled some photos earlier today of a health centre, and I think that as we look at these standards, this government take a hard look at our sanitary practices in our health centres and in our regions and even here in Yellowknife. The Minister talks about giving the best care and treatment to our residents and, obviously, it looks like we are failing in one community already, and I think that’s something that needs to be addressed. Obviously, it would lead to more illnesses and sicknesses and something that we need to take into consideration when we’re thinking about our patients here and residents.
Just a few comments. I really don’t want to get too much into the seniors homes, but it’s a bigger issue than just beds. It is safety; it is neglect; it is abuse; and when we are looking at best care and services for residents of the NWT, we don’t look at it as a building, we don’t look at it as a room or a bed, we look at it as a resident, the person itself. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I agree with the Member; it is about safety; it is about quality; and that’s the type of things we are addressing or attempting to address in our Aging in Place Strategy. It isn’t just about beds but it’s about providing services and programs that meet the needs of our residents through their transition from being an individual who is living in their home, to needing supports, to having to go into independent living, to having to go into a long-term care facility where they need additional support and making sure their journey through that aging process is safe and that the programs they are receiving are quality services and our buildings, when they do have to utilize our building, meet the needs.
I’m going to bounce around a little bit.
I saw the pictures that were tabled today as well. Clearly, we know that the Tulita health centre is one of the health centres that need to be updated. It’s actually on the top of our priority list. We have already done a bunch of planning on that facility and we will be moving forward through the capital process to make sure that we have a state-of-the-art facility in that community. We do have a design standard that we utilize for communities of different sizes, B, C, B/C, whichever the community is eligible for. So, we are moving forward.
In time, as facilities age, we will do our best to keep them up and running and they will reach a point where they need to be replaced, and Tulita has reached that point where it needs to be replaced.
We have standards of infection control and other aspects that need to be incorporated with all of our builds. All new buildings must meet the current standards. If we were to do a major retrofit or changes on existing buildings, we would have to make sure they come up to those standards as well.
Treatment facilities in the Northwest Territories, we’ve had a number of discussions around that. We continue to move forward with our mobile treatment option, which will allow us to use multiple facilities throughout the Northwest Territories and give us the ability to move treatment programs, 48-day type programs to where the people are, in case people aren’t interested in going to our southern facilities or they are not interested in the on-the-land programs. It will give us the opportunity to work with different Aboriginal governments throughout the Northwest Territories, the Gwich’in, the Inuvialuit, Sahtu, Tlicho, as an example. We’re going to continue to move forward in that way.
Medical detox beds you wouldn’t find in a treatment facility. They aren’t located in treatment facilities. They tend to be located in hospitals or health centres. In the Northwest Territories, we have the ability to provide medical detox in our hospitals, so Fort Smith, Hay River, Inuvik and Yellowknife. We don’t have dedicated beds, per se, but we are capable and we will provide medical detox when it is required. If we were to dedicate a bed, we would only be able to use that bed for that purpose, which means it may sit empty for periods of time, so it’s better to make sure that the service is available so that we can provide medical detox in any of our facilities at any time when it is needed by a resident of the Northwest Territories than, say, dedicating that this bed shall only be used for medical detox. We do do medical detox in those facilities that I have mentioned.
I am going to get the deputy minister to talk a little bit about the Inuvik dental situation and then we’ll come back to me, if the chair doesn’t mind.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Ms. DeLancey.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. This situation with the dental suite in the East Three School is that the infection control standards have changed since the original design. For some of the more invasive procedures that used to be done in the school, now basically, according to our infection control standards, we would need that suite to be up to the code that is required for a health care facility.
The basic problem is the air handling requirements. A secondary problem and one that would be easier to deal with, is the higher standard of cleaning requirements. We have looked at the costs for upgrading the suite and it would be quite expensive, both in terms of ducting and in terms of electricity, so the interim solution is that the authority is working with the school.
Right now we have the dental therapists, I understand, going in and using that room for non-invasive procedures, so they are using the room for screening, for some of the preventative work they do like fluoride treatments. The hospital is available for surgery or more invasive procedures. We are still working, our department, with Education and Public Works to see if there is a cost-effective solution. But quite frankly, if it’s not cheap, it just may not be the first priority for another capital dollar when we can make those services available in the hospital. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Deputy DeLancey. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Member also talked a little bit about the isolation room in the Beaufort-Delta Health and Social Services Health Centre. The program design is currently underway. We anticipate construction of that isolation room, or renovation of that isolation room to begin no later than March, with conclusion early in the new fiscal year. It will be part this fiscal year, part next fiscal year.
The Member also talked about our need to plan and have a plan for long-term care beds in the Northwest Territories. I can confirm for you today, and I believe we have mentioned it in committee in the past, we are doing a comprehensive plan to determine our long-term needs, our short-term needs and our mid-term needs. We are putting together a plan that will identify where beds will be constructed throughout the Northwest Territories. It is long term in the fact that we know that at some point the need for dementia is going to exceed our capacity, as well, and we will have to look at expansion and/or creation of additional facilities to meet those needs.
We are doing that work. We are doing a needs analysis. We are doing a long-term plan that will identify where we are going to expand and/or create new long-term care beds throughout the Northwest Territories that will meet our long-term need that is consistent with the report on needs that was actually already done. We are currently in the process of developing a long-term plan that will identify where these beds need to be. When that plan is done, we will absolutely share it with committee and then we can all work together on the creation and continue to move forward on long-term care beds here in the Northwest Territories.
There is one more thing that I would like to talk about, and it is the previous Member who was talking, Mr. Dolynny, asked about or suggested that we pursue other alternatives, not just government but private organizations that might be interested in providing long-term care services in the Northwest Territories. In every jurisdiction in the country, this happens. There are private homes all over the country. I’ve already asked the department to begin the research and develop a report on different options that are available to us that we can utilize to help encourage private business to pursue independent or privately owned long-term care type facilities that will be an option for residents of the Northwest Territories. I’ve heard many people say, “I don’t want to stay in one of the GNWT facilities, I am happy to pay my way,” but there are no options for them today. So we’re interested and we’re hoping that we’ll be able to put something together that can create some incentives for individuals to pursue some privately owned long-term care facilities here in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister Abernethy. If there are no further general comments, does committee agree to proceed with detail?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. We are on page 31 of the NWT Capital Estimates 2015-2016 under Health and Social Services. We will defer consideration of that detail. I’d ask to turn your attention to page 32, Health and Social Services, community programs, infrastructure investments, $7.006. Does committee agree? Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wanted to ask a couple of questions here. First of all, the Child and Family Information System. I agree, totally needed. It was called for in the 16th Assembly. I know the Minister is aware. Just looking at the layout of this, considerable funds are available in this fiscal year. We’re proposing considerable funds in the year under consideration, that’s ’15-16, and then they extend into the following year, so that’s a three-year implementation of what seems like a fairly straightforward system that I know every jurisdiction in Canada must have. This is started in the 16th; it’s going to extend into the 18th Assembly before it’s in place. Could I get some idea of what we’re getting done this year versus what’s planned for the fiscal year under consideration here?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just to be clear, this isn’t a simple project. There are different projects, different tools, different resources out there, but every resource is going to have to be tailored to meet the particular programs and services that we have in place. Every program is going to have to be tailored, so we’re going to have to go out there and do some analysis of the different programs to see if any of them meet our needs and which one is going to be the simplest to actually modify to suit our needs. But for actually what’s happening in this fiscal year, I will go to Deputy Minister DeLancey.
Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Deputy Minister DeLancey.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We did spend some time early in the fiscal year putting together a request for proposals, did go out and weren’t successful the first time around, and we’re now working with some consulting expertise to consider whether to go out again or whether just to go out and look at what off-the-shelf systems might be available, look at what other jurisdictions are using. But as the Minister indicated, our needs are unique. I mean, every jurisdiction has different legislation, has different ways of construction, caseloads and so on, so what we hope to get done this year is identify a system, but then there’s a considerable amount of work to be done to customize it, to customize it to our needs, to customize it to some of the new initiatives that we’re introducing under the Child and Family Services Action Plan. Then there’s training as well as, right now, because our authorities are not all on a common platform and not all using the same systems, that provides some delays and some complications in actually rolling out the system. This year we’re focusing on, hopefully, selecting a system and the looking at actual customization and implementation over the next year.
Thank you, Ms. DeLancey. Mr. Bromley.
Thanks for that information. I assume the last year is just patching up things that need to be patched up and might deal with things that might come up, but I’d welcome any further information on that. Actually, that’s really it.
Like I said, I would welcome any more comments there. I did want to appreciate that the Hay River facility is happening. I know they lost a facility with the demolition of their previous hospital, and the Minister has been hearing us talk about long-term care beds, and here’s an example outside of Yellowknife where there is action happening, as I mentioned earlier, as well, so I appreciate that.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Abernethy.
As we roll out the last year, it is going to include some tweaking and training of the individual staff so that they know how to use the system properly.
With respect to the Woodland, absolutely agree. Unfortunately, we can’t count this as new beds because this is replacing beds that we’re losing, so we don’t get to count this as more beds. It does not change our ultimate count, whereas Norman Wells and Behchoko clearly do.
Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Continuing on with detailed questions on page 32, I have Mr. Yakeleya.
This is just a quick comment here on the child and family services and the shelters and what you’re calling group homes. I know we don’t have those emergency shelters in the communities and I just want to ask the Minister, in his future discussions with the department and communities in the Sahtu health board, if there are designated emergency shelters and if there are some empty facilities, some empty homes in some of our communities where some of the families are taken out of the community, and there are some people left, also, could be deemed homeless if they moved to Yellowknife. We’re in that same situation just as sort of larger families in the Sahtu where they sort of get to be invited in and sleep on the couch or wherever and then they wander to another house. So just in the plans, I wanted to know, because it’s becoming an issue and I’ll raise it later on in the Assembly.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. With respect to family violence, there are some identified facilities or houses or places where individuals can go throughout the Northwest Territories and we can probably pull together where some of those, in which communities some of those locations exist. But when it comes to child and family services, our goal is to make sure that the children are with families, so we’re working with the Foster Family Coalition to increase the number of foster families that are available.
We’ve heard clearly that there’s got to be a better way to engage families, to make sure that children stay with families, whether it’s a foster relationship or not. We’re not building facilities to put children in. We want to keep children in a family environment, so we wouldn’t be doing that.
With respect to shelters throughout the Northwest Territories where individuals or homeless people can go, we’ve had a lot of creative NGOs providing services in that particular area and we’ve been trying to find ways to support them where appropriate. I’ve had an opportunity to meet with the chief and ex-SAO from communities like Fort Good Hope who are developing community-based, community-driven plans to meet community needs, and we’re always looking for ways to partner on projects like that that are community driven to meet those needs of communities that speak to the exact type of thing that the MLA has been referring.
The Minister is correct, and I look forward to some of the shelters that may be designated as a safe home maybe in the communities for families to go to. Sometimes these happen at 11 o’clock at night, sometimes two o’clock in the morning, sometimes four o’clock in the morning. These families, out of the goodness of their heart, allow them into their houses because they’re dealing with some family issue or something that’s going on in the family. Some of those could be considered. I mean, I was in Tulita and they were saying that there are a couple of empty houses and that it would be nice to have these as a safe house for the family. Of course, that ties in with the O and M, so that gets quite complicated sometimes. I certainly support the Minister’s comments on the child and family services and having children be as close to family as possible in the communities. I just dealt with this last week. I haven’t sent the Minister a note, I don’t think, but it’s something that I want to have a discussion with him. That can be done outside the House here.
I do want to say that Fort Good Hope has expressed a strong interest in… There’s an old seniors unit that was boarded up as part of the flood area down in the field, they call it, and I think the deputy minister if quite aware of where that building is. They want to use that as a means of a transient house or a treatment house or something. I know there was a strong push for that. There is some discussion on that and I’m hoping that through the Minister of Housing and yourself, Minister, something can be looked at. I know that Good Hope is very strong on that. They’re looking for that, and they’re certainly going to be looking for some support on the O and M, but that’s something that they thought they could use and utilize, especially in Fort Good Hope. They really need it there. So I would appreciate any type of movement on that, Minister. That’s my comments for this section. Thank you.
The Member and I are actually talking about the same project at Fort Good Hope, and they have approached us, as well as Housing Corp and Justice because there’s an opportunity for everybody to work together to try and find some opportunities for Fort Good Hope, driven and led by Fort Good Hope.
I would like the deputy minister to talk a little bit about what we’re doing around housing for individuals that need temporary housing, safe shelters. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Deputy Minister DeLancey.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, just quickly, in those regions that don’t have a family violence shelter, we have this year made some funding available through the health and social services authorities to develop the concept of safe houses in the communities. So the Sahtu is receiving $122,000, Deh Cho is receiving $46,000 and Tlicho is receiving $31,000. Then we flow that through the authorities and we’ll work with communities to try to come up with community-based solutions. Thank you.
Thank you, Deputy Minister DeLancey. Committee, we’re on page 32, Health and Social Services, community programs, infrastructure investments, $7.006. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. I’ll ask you to turn to page 34, Health and Social Services, infrastructure investments, $77.389 million. Does committee agree? Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just had a question on the electronic medical records. I know the Minister has been mentioning how advanced we are in this area. He also did mention there were a couple, I think with regard to Stanton, issues, but I’d like to get it straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. So if I could get some information on what the issues are that are remaining in the implementation of electronic medical records in Yellowknife and where we are with the whole project territory-wide. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We continue to roll out EMR and we have it in Yellowknife, Hay River and Fort Smith. Right now we’re working on Stanton. As I indicated yesterday, there have been a couple delays on our rollout at Stanton, but we continue to move forward and we intend to continue to move forward with the other communities – Deh Cho, Tlicho, Sahtu, Beaufort-Delta – over the next couple of fiscal years. For specifics on some of the delays we’re experiencing on Stanton, I’m going to go to the deputy minister to provide that detail.
Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Ms. DeLancey.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Actually the delays aren’t too bad. We’re pretty pleased with the progress we’re making and the delays really fall into two categories. One is getting the time of practitioners. We do have some dedicated staff, but a lot of people, of course physicians and clinicians, have other jobs, and finding the time to get people together to talk about developing protocols, change management, it just takes some time to get that on everybody’s schedule. One of the lessons learned from other jurisdictions is don’t rush it, get people on side and make sure people are ready. So, some of the delays have simply been due to timing and scheduling and the number of departments at Stanton that are involved.
The other delays have had to do with our provider. We had chosen the Wolf electronic medical records, and Wolf last year was purchased by Telus, so there have been some delays associated with the transfer of ownership. Telus is a bigger company, they have a lot more customers and a couple of the customizations that we’ve been waiting for them to do, sometimes we’ve been on a bit of a waiting list, but we did actually have our providers in town for a fairly big meeting a couple of weeks ago and I think we’re back on track. They heard our urgency, they met our folks, they saw what our problems are and we think we’re getting very good responsiveness. So we’re hoping that’s going to keep us on schedule. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. DeLancey. Mr. Bromley
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have a couple of questions on the Stanton Territorial Hospital Renewal Project. First of all, I appreciate that the Minister will not privatize medical services. Of course, committee insisted that during the development of the P3 policy that if we ever contemplated hospital renovations as a P3, we would certainly not be open to privatization of medical services. Of course, as I understand it, the P3 project has something to do in its title with maintenance. I think it’s construction, operation and maintenance or something like that, not operations. That’s the medical side I hope. Anyway, what is the schedule for the… We’ve got a $40 million expenditure, I believe the Minister mentioned for this fiscal year under consideration, what’s the program for renovating this hospital? How many years will it take? Can he share with us some general details on departments within the hospital, for example, that will be impacted and how that’s going to be managed?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Abernethy.
