Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services with respect to my Member’s statement. The provision of consistent, dependable health care to all our communities is a goal of ours and the territorial government’s.
The issue is about Wrigley and its lack of a community nurse, which has been requested ever since the last time they had that service there, whatever the circumstances were that led to the departure of the nurse at that time. To return a nurse, the case has always been that there has to be safety in place; there has to be community policing.
Over time I have worked hard and got the agreement of the House, and the government agreed to restore community policing to Wrigley. Consequently, that was a very huge step. That was a big win, because that meant Wrigley would get a nurse.
Upon getting that, we went to the Department of Health and Social Services and said: okay; when are we going to put the job out and word out that there’s going to be a community nurse position open for Wrigley? The reply was that there isn’t one.
I’d like to know what possible reason there is for not following through with the provision of this essential service for the community of Wrigley. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I had the opportunity to visit the community of Wrigley in May with the Member. We had a very productive meeting with the local leadership wherein one of the things that the chief and council asked for was to have a permanent nurse there.
I have had discussions with the Dehcho Health and Social Services Authority. We do have a fully functioning board and administration there, and their advice at this time is that Wrigley, for a community of its size and needs, has adequate services. They are recommending that we do not have a nurse placed there. Having said that that is their position, I would like to make a commitment to the Member that I will have further discussion with the board and see what is possible.
Absolutely, I’m glad that the Minister wants to follow through this commitment of restoring nursing services to Wrigley. Just with respect to Dehcho Health and Social Services, they are a very efficient and effective board for our region. I, too, commend them for that.
I also know Wrigley’s got a facility. The nursing position is within their budget, and all they’ve got to do now is allocate that person year and move them to Wrigley. I’m not too sure what the difficulty there is now that there’s going to be some safety there.
I still do not know what the possible reason is for not following through with the commitment to restore nursing services. I would like the Minister to address that once again.
There aren’t any reasons that I haven’t said already. I would like to just state that again that Wrigley is under the administrative oversight of the Dehcho Health and Social Services Authority. They allocate how their money and their PYs are divided among all of their eight communities, I believe, that they serve — or maybe even more. They feel that the services they are providing right now to Wrigley are actually more than what they provide for another community within their region of similar size, so there are no plans to put permanent nurses there at the moment.
I understand in the past that one of the concerns was that there was no RCMP protection in Wrigley. I understand that there will be RCMP protection going in there as of 2011. We have some time from now until then to look at how we could improve the services not only in Wrigley but in the surrounding communities. I would like to make the commitment again to the Member that I will continue to work with the authority and the Member to see how we can address this.
The provision of any type of services for Wrigley is essential. I believe the recent Statistics Canada figures state that Wrigley is one of the ones with a declining population. That’s exactly because there is a lack of services. There is still that lack of services today, and I believe they are essential.
I would be happy to look into the possibility of increasing the time that the nurse visits the community of Wrigley, especially at the time of freeze-up and breakup. I know that the community was very happy to have a nurse there during the time we were there. I understand that the people feel more comfortable when they have a resident nurse. I will review the hours of other services that are provided in Wrigley and see how we could improve that. We have a continuing discussion with the authority, and I will continue to do that.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. Your final short supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. The Minister put her finger on it exactly: having that dependable, reliable service in the community makes people more relaxed and, I believe, more healthy.
Once again, I would like the Minister to comment on working towards having full time nursing. If it is working towards 2011, I would be very happy to work with her, along with the community, toward more frequent, consistent visits. Thank you.
I thought I stated earlier in the answer to the first question that the authorities who look after the staffing, the PYs and the service levels in Deh Cho, have told me — and I have talked to them following my meeting and my visits to Wrigley and other communities in Deh Cho — about the issues that were raised in the community, one of them being having more nursing services in Wrigley.
They told me then and they have told me lately that they believe that the nursing services in Wrigley are at or above the level they should be — for the size of the community, that is. Now, I understand that the community would still like to see more of that, and we have other communities in the Territories that would like to have their nursing services increased.
I am in the process of reviewing the human resource makeup of especially our small communities. I have already stated in this House that I am willing to work with the strategic investment committee, or joint committee, or whatever that makeup will be of the committee for rural and small communities. I think that this is something that we need to look at not only for Health and Social Services and Human Resources but in other areas as well, to see how we build capacity in small communities. That’s another area that I am willing to work on.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
