Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services if there is a policy on patients who get or receive surgery at the Stanton Hospital. Is there a policy that they have to stay there so long, and then they have to leave the hospital back to their hometowns? I’m not too sure what that policy is called, but is there a policy in place?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess not so much as a policy but more of a clinical practice. A decision as to when the patient is released is a clinical decision made by the physician that’s responsible for that patient.
Thanks for the clarification from the Minister. I’ve been told, when I went to Fort Good Hope, that there are several patients from the Sahtu that had surgery in Yellowknife’s Stanton Hospital and they were released based on the clinical decision by the doctor of when they came back to their home communities. Because of the operation and because of the sensitivity of it, they were released a little too early and then they had to come back to the Stanton Hospital for some more medication and recovery.
I want to ask the Minister what assurance he can give me that these patients, once they leave back to their communities, that they possibly, to the highest degree, will not come back to the Stanton for further medication on that surgery.
Every patient that has had surgery has a plan, a care plan as they are discharged from the hospital. This could include medication, follow-up appointments, and also advising the patient to look out for certain warning signs, post-surgery warning signs, and if anything comes up, they are to report back to the clinic. I will just make sure that these post-surgery plans are thorough and that everyone has a clear understanding of this plan prior to leaving the hospital.
Is there any sense the Minister has in regard to some of the patients… Sometimes they are released, and even they know that they are released a little too early, and they just need to stay an extra week or two for the recovery. Sometimes they do not speak up and they are released back to the communities, knowing that it’s not quite right.
Is there any sense that the Minister can assure me and the people of the Sahtu that they have the right, if they would insist that they stay an extra week or two at the hospital, to make sure that their recovery is well in good terms?
That’s a very tough question. It’s something that only the doctor or the surgeon can answer. They are going to determine, based on the condition of the patient, on whether or not the person should be released. If the patient is unhappy, that they think they’re being released from the hospital too early, yes, they do have an avenue where we have had situations down south, in Edmonton to be exact, where the family felt that the patient was being released too early. They contacted us. We contacted the medical people and the person got to stay a couple of extra days. I mean, there is something in the system that can allow us to do that.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The people I spoke to about the surgeries in the Stanton Hospital were very concerned because there were a number of incidents that indicated that these patients left the hospital a little too early and their recovery wasn’t quite healing up, or somewhere along the line it brought them back to Stanton. It cost a lot of money and it caused a lot of heartache.
I want to ask the Minister, within Stanton I’m speaking about, when people have these surgeries that they are fully informed when the doctor is going to release them. However, they have the right, also, to say we want to stay because something along the system is not quite right for them to go back to their communities, fearing that they are going to come back here because of the nature of the surgery. Can the Minister help me out in terms of how do we get to that point where patients would be staying here a little longer than they expected to?
Specific to the Stanton Territorial Hospital, we can touch base with the CEO and advise the CEO of the issue and the CEO will have that discussion with the doctor that, at any point, if the individual is indicating that they themselves don’t feel well enough to be released from the hospital, that we then have some system where the CEO and the physician would have that discussion at that one time when this occurs. I can ensure that that happens.
