Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Ms. Mathison.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The numbers on page 8-15 in 2013-14 have been restated to show comparable numbers between the two years, so in 2013-14, for example, the two positions related to the Health Information Act that already existed in the department were previously presented under the program delivery support division, and so we’ve restated the actuals here so it’s more comparable to show the net increase, but the impact on the compensation and benefits dollars is the full impact of all the positions that have moved into the directorate.
Thank you, Ms. Mathison. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for that information. I think I understood that and it explains why some of the other divisions are doing so well. Just on the Minister’s comment that these have O and M dollars associated with them, I would assume those dollars would not be reported under compensation and benefits.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Abernethy.
No, they wouldn’t.
Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Information item, directorate, active positions, page 8-15. Agreed?
Agreed.
Thank you. Moving on to page 8-17, activity summary, program delivery support, operations expenditure summary, $46.490 million. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a number of comments I want to make here, or questions, I guess. The first one has to do with the system human resource planning division. It’s been a while now since the recruitment of health professionals has been moved back to the Department of Health and Social Services. I’d like to hear from the Minister or from the department whether or not they’ve done an evaluation of how well it’s working to have that function back within the department.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Madam Chair. One of the priorities of this unit has been since we’ve brought them over from the Department of Human Resources is to review the existing programs and services they are providing and start putting together a long-term strategic human resource plan for health professionals within the Northwest Territories. That work is still underway and we’re hoping to have a draft strategic human resource plan that we can bring to committee to have a discussion about things that we need to do and things we need to change. There are a number of areas in programs that we have delivered in the past that don’t appear to be providing much value as far as recruitment and retention and it’s time we make some improvements, and I look forward to an opportunity to have further discussion in this particular area and our strategic plan, our human resource strategic plan as we move forward. This unit has been very busy and there’s been a lot of work on what was there and where we need to go and it’s been less than a year.
Thanks to the Minister. I have a comment with regard to health card renewals. Some months ago, over a year ago I guess, it was a huge issue and there were major problems with health card renewals. Interestingly enough, I haven’t heard many comments from my constituents, certainly within the last six or eight months, but just recently I had somebody who phoned and left me a message, didn’t really want any action but wanted me to know – and I’m sharing this with you, Minister – that his health care card, he had just discovered it had been expired for a year and he had no knowledge. Now, I thought we were sending out notices, so where are things at in terms of health care card renewals? Do you figure that we’ve gotten over most of the hiccups? Obviously not this one, but is the system working better than it certainly was when it switched over?
Clearly, we had some growing pains as we rolled out this new approach on renewing health care cards. We do provide notification to people. We are limited in providing it to known addresses and if people move or they change their post office boxes, we may occasionally miss an individual. I don’t know the situation you’re describing and if you want to share the details with me, please, so that we can insert it into our quality assurance process to make sure that we learn from it and make sure that that type of thing doesn’t happen again. I would say that we have experienced improvement since our initial rollout and we are getting health care cards turned around in a more timely and reasonable manner.
Thanks to the Minister. I’m not sure I can give you the info. It was pretty much I want you to know this, but I don’t think I’ve got enough detail that I can share with you to help you figure out what went wrong.
There is money in the budget for midwifery. I didn’t know if that was the Minister who said that or if that was in the budget address, and I’m very glad to hear that. My understanding is that it’s going to put, at least I’m thinking it’s one midwife, but one or two midwives in Inuvik in the 2014-15 budget year. If I could get confirmation on that, and if I could hear from the Minister where we’re going next after Inuvik.
In my response to some of the opening comments I talked a little bit about the midwifery services. We are doing a minor renovation to the existing Hay River Health and Social Services Authority, which we believe will allow us to move forward with the Midwifery Program sooner than anticipated. We had some limitations given that the current facility doesn’t meet the needs, and we are expecting the new facility to meet the needs, but we’ve now got a coordinator hired in the department who is doing the work for us, so we’re actually anticipating we’re going to be moving forward more quickly with the Hay River position, the two positions here, right away. We actually have gone out for staffing on those midwifery positions in Hay River. We’re hoping to do some interviews in the immediate future, so hopefully, we can get that up and running pretty quick.
The work on Inuvik is more around sort of setting up the system in Inuvik to make sure that all the stakeholders are aware we’re moving forward with that. We plan to fill positions in Inuvik, should everything move according to plan, in the ’15-16 fiscal year.
Staffing Inuvik is ’15-16 is what I thought I heard. My other question was where are we going after Inuvik? Where is the next area that a Midwifery Program is going to be put in place?
According to the territorial plan, Hay River, Inuvik, Yellowknife as a territorial program.
Thanks to the Minister for that confirmation. I wanted to make a comment to the loss in this year’s budget of the money for oral health care. It was $468,000, I believe. I know that this was federal money, but I think the Minister heard from the Social Programs committee that this is something which the committee considers to be really important, a basic prevention program for young children. I know that the Minister has said in I think it was in his response to people’s comments that there is a plan for oral health, that we’re studying what we’re doing and we’re going to have a plan sometime within this next year. I do have a problem with that. I think that the $468,000 that we have been using for oral health has been but a drop in the bucket of what we need to do with regard to our young people’s oral health. There was a very telling comment from one of the department staff at a briefing, which stated that, I think… I wish I could remember the percentage, but it was that something like 80 or 85 percent of children under the age of five have at least five cavities. That’s huge, and we know very well that dental health is part of whole body health, and a child with poor dental health is going to be a child in poor health in other areas as well.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. I will circulate the motion. The motion is in order. To the motion. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I kind of shot the wad previously before I introduced the motion. I would just like to state, in terms of where the money can come from, I know the department is consistently strapped for money and I know the Minister said, as well, that we don’t know what the federal money is going to be eligible for, but I suspect we can make oral health care fit into something that the federal government is going to require us to use for this $7 million a year.
I really feel this is a minimal amount of money and I feel it’s basic to the health of our children. It’s a very basic prevention tool we can use. I would urge everybody to really think about what this is going to do for us, the amount of money that it is and the fact that we do have “$7 million of new money” coming to us this year some time. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. To the motion. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you. Very briefly…
---Technical difficulties
Thank you, committee. Welcome back. Sorry for the technical delay. Noting the clock, I know we have a motion on the floor, but we are going to defer it by noting the clock. We will get back to it. I will rise and report progress.
I call the House back to order. Before I call for the report of Committee of the Whole, I am informed you would like some more time to consider the matters before you in Committee of the Whole.
By the authority given to me by Motion 10-17(5), I hereby place you back into Committee of the Whole to consider the business before the House until such time as you are ready to report, with Mr. Dolynny in the chair.
I’d like to call Committee of the Whole back to order. Committee, we last left off with a committee motion on the floor. To the motion. I have Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Very briefly, I support this motion. I’d also like to note that it’s not really just prevention we’re talking about. We have a situation now, so we obviously need a lot of on-the-ground action right now while we are conducting or planning and putting in place a good comprehensive program of both prevention and treatment.
I’d also like to mention that we really should be promoting a dental therapist training program at Aurora College, so I’m hoping that the Minister of ECE is listening and will start to give some serious attention to developing that program, as well, if indeed we don’t have it yet.
I will be supporting the motion. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. To the motion. Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Committee did some hard work going through the business planning session and I feel that bringing motions forward for recommendations that, as chair of the standing committee, I do stand behind the hard work of the committee members, the staff, and the departments that came and presented before us and gave us some of their concerns and issues as well.
As this is a recommendation, I will be supporting the motion. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. To the motion. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just for some clarity, there is a reference to this, in this motion, to $468,000 which I believe is the $468,000 that was identified in 8-39. Just for clarity purpose, the dollars that are there came from the federal government, and not the entire $468,000 were actually NWT dollars.
We had, out of that $498,000, when you combine the $468,000 and the $30,000 the year before, we had $198,000 of that and then $50,000 of that available to the Northwest Territories. Of that amount, $144,000 had to go to Nunavut and $105,000 had to go to the Yukon. One of the reasons the federal government gave these dollars to us is for the exact reasons that the Member is talking about, in addition to the fact that we know in Canada we have lost the one training institution that does train dental therapists and the federal government wanted the three territories to try to come up with some solutions on how to improve oral health in the Northwest Territories and also to start having some discussions on how we can facilitate some training for them.
The dollars are used and are being used as part of the Pan-Territorial Oral Health Initiative which has been going on for the two years, and from that they’re going to come up with a report that’s going to help inform decision-making as we go forward on how to improve dental therapy services but also just oral health services in the Northwest Territories as well as the other two territories.
We already do a number of things. We have $366,000 dedicated to dental therapy positions in the Northwest Territories, who are an incredibly important position who do treatment as well as public health and oral health for prevention and promotion. We do a number of things on top of that.
Dental and oral health is promoted at regional and community levels through the authorities, and programs such as Lift the Lip and Little Teeth are big campaigns that focus on teaching parents the importance of good oral care for children zero to five, or Healthy Family programs have oral health and promotion sections, dental therapists are doing incredible work out there, community health representatives and wellness workers are involved in dental oral health prevention, regional nutritionists are doing much of this work as well. Campaigns linked to healthy eating such as Drop the Pop, promotional breastfeeding and early childhood programs are also contributing in this area. Does that mean we’re doing enough? No. We need to do more and we’ve heard that clearly.
But part of the problem with this motion that’s in front of us today is it seems to be suggesting that this $468,000 is something we should duplicate when, in fact, these dollars were not for the provision of these services but was to do an analysis and research, which concludes at the end of this fiscal year.
It is referenced in here that we should use these federal dollars that are coming as part of the $7 million. But as I indicated yesterday, the federal government put really tight limitations on how we can spend those dollars, and at this time we don’t know what those criteria are, but we do know that the three territories did put forward a recommendation for more money, of which we did not get the full funding, for health system improvement, access to specialized tertiary care and pan-territorial innovation. We don’t know that this will fit under there, so this motion might be a little on the premature side.
What we can say is, when we know what these dollars are available for, we will certainly have discussion with committee to help set our priorities. But at this time, to suggest we put $468,000 in, recognizing these tight fiscal times, also recognizing that we are doing things and that we want to do things better and we will work with the three territories to ensure that dental therapists have training available to northern residents, we are going to be voting against this motion at this time.
Thank you, Minister Abernethy. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called. The motion is defeated.
---Defeated
Committee, we are on 8-17, activity summary. Sorry, before we do so, Minister Abernethy, do you have witnesses that you’d like to bring into the House?
Yes, please.
Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Sergeant-at-Arms, if you would escort the witnesses into the House, please.
I would like to welcome Ms. DeLancey and Ms. Mathison back, and the Minister here for returning. Committee, we are on 8-17, activity summary, program delivery support, operations expenditure summary. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’d like to speak just briefly to population health and particularly oral health. I understand that there’s $366,000, three positions with GNWT focused on that and I appreciate that. Is the dental surgery facility still operational in Hay River? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Abernethy.
Yes, it is.
Is that part of what the Minister was talking about with these three positions? Thank you.
No, Mr. Chair. We have dental therapist positions throughout the Northwest Territories and those dollars that I refer to are for the dental therapist positions.
About 50 percent of our positions at this point are vacant. What I was talking about previously in the motion is there’s nowhere to train new dental therapists and this is a problem, and the three territories are trying to come up with a solution that will allow us to provide training to individuals to fill these roles. This isn’t a problem unique to the Northwest Territories, this is the three territories that are suffering from this.
Our dental services for our residents are actually contracted out by the authorities with private dentists who come to the communities who provide dental services. The dental therapists enhance what can be done in communities.
Thanks to the Minister for that additional information. We’ve heard from departmental staff that 85 percent of children under the age of five have cavities in five teeth, very serious dental issues. I got the sense that the Minister is happy to put his additional efforts into planning and that that’s just a situation we have to live with.
Is that the position of the Minister, that he’s willing to accept that statistic and go with the resources we have and hope that we can get resources in the future? Eighty-five percent of Aboriginal children under the age of five. Thank you.
The provision of dental services for Aboriginal children is actually the responsibility of the federal government and we’re looking at finding ways to encourage the federal government to invest more money in this particular area. We do care very much about our youth. We recognize, without question, that oral health impacts overall health and we will continue to do things to address those issues. But we need to plan and we need to figure out what the best programs to put in place are, and we will continue to move forward to develop a plan that will help us address oral health across the Northwest Territories.
I don’t think the status quo was good enough, but I would rather have an informed plan than no plan.
Mr. Chair, I would point out that this is not a new situation. This hasn’t just appeared or anything like that.
Moving on, the health and social services authorities administration I see has made a substantial leap this year from the last two years when it’s been almost identical. I’m wondering: is there a particular reason for that? Does that have to do with maybe the shift of shared services staff or something like that? Is there an obvious and apparent reason for that increase? Thank you.
We’ll go to Deputy Minister DeLancey.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. The increase in funding to health service authorities administration is due mainly to funding for a number of new initiatives which includes positions associated with the rollout of the electronic medical records – there are two positions in Hay River and two positions at the Yellowknife authority – funding to Stanton to roll out the Med-Response system; some portion of the new early childhood development funding that is going to the authorities for direct program delivery; some funding that’s going to the authorities that we’re bringing into the TSC because they will now need to cover their chargeback costs; a significant amount of one-time funding to cover the implementation of moving authorities into the TSC; and some new positions to support implementing our shared services for information technology and information systems. Thank you.
Thank you for that explanation. Just in terms of our work with the authorities to come up with a new line of authority and clarity and continuity in the delivery of our health systems across the NWT, where are we at in that? I know we’ve talked about that for many years. Is that something that the Minister has been talking to health authorities about and is there any kind of a time frame in front of us on how we might proceed there? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Abernethy.
