Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a couple of other things I didn’t get a chance to speak to last time. In terms of mental health services, I want to get a quick update on… I’m not sure if it was a pilot project or the work that was being done with Dalhousie University in terms of telehealth for mental health counselling services. Are we still using that and is it being utilized to a degree? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. That is still in place. We have had some difficulties over the year with some specific issues, but for the details, I will go to the deputy for that.
Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Deputy Minister DeLancey.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have put in place a pilot project. It was a contract with Dalhousie University’s global psychiatry services, and we did get some additional funding through the Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan to support that, which we combined with funding on a team basis with Stanton and Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority. The intent was to improve access to psychiatric outpatient services. Dalhousie had committed to have people on the ground for a certain period of time every month as well as to provide specialized services through locums upon request and to provide telehealth counselling to enhance services.
As the Minister said, there have been some problems. We’re coming to the end of the contract. It winds up at the end of this fiscal year. We ran into technical difficulties in terms of our technology working with Dalhousie’s technology, which made it challenging to do the scheduled telehealth. Dalhousie had some changes in personnel which made it difficult for them to provide the specialized services we needed particularly in the area of psychiatric services for children and youth which is where we’re seeing the greatest pressures. Right now Yellowknife Health and Social Services and Stanton are working together to do an evaluation of how that contract has worked and that will inform a decision whether to extend the contract and work with Dal to change how we approach it or whether to pull back that funding and look at another way to achieve to filling the gaps that we have and some of the changing circumstances, because we’re really seeing an increase in the demand for services for children and youth.
Thank you, deputy minister. Mr. Moses.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. Can I get confirmation on how much that contract was? How much did we contract with Dalhousie for?
I have it somewhere in my iPad. It’s $300,000 and a bit more, but we can confirm the exact figure and get back to you.
One of the Members earlier talked about nursing in the small communities. As the Minister knows, we have eight communities that don’t have nurses. I wonder if the department would be looking at changing its policy in terms of looking at trying to see if we can staff nurses in some of these communities, but if not, the amount of days that a public health nurse or a nurse would go into the community. I know that in some cases, the Minister mentioned in the House that a public health nurse will go in for two days sometimes. But I wonder if he could change the policy so that there are more frequent visits in the week or else a policy that we can actually staff a nurse in there, and if he’d be open to having discussions with the Department of Justice and working together so that we have the RCMP and the nurse in these communities.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Currently, the communities that don’t actually have permanent nurses, the amount of time that nurses are visiting does vary from community to community based on the level of need and acuity and different things going on in the community, so there is no one number that is actually utilized. Every authority has a slightly different approach.
As I have said to the Member who asked the questions previously, we’re looking at other opportunities. Maybe not a nurse, maybe not an LPN, maybe a high level first responder might be appropriate to be in there on a more permanent basis. But we did learn about other position opportunities in Alaska and we’re exploring those. As we move forward with transition we’ll be in a better position to find some consistency on how we’re supporting the different communities, recognizing that every community in the Northwest Territories has a different degree of need, so we will also have to work with the communities. As I’ve committed, I’m happy to go to communities to meet with leadership and talk about what their specific needs are, what issues they’re trying to address and how working together we can best accomplish those targets.
More of a comment in terms of when we get into the smaller communities that’s where we start to tend to see some of the higher health risks, higher rates of some of our health indicators as well as educational indicators, and I think that if we had somebody staffed in there that can deal with some of the care and treatment but also on the prevention and promotion and education awareness side, I think we could really tackle some of those high rates that we see in the small communities and bring them down so that we start having more healthy and educated people in the small communities and not just saying because of the population we can’t provide those services. I know we do provide those services, but on a more regular basis would be more beneficial, I think, to these communities.
Just moving forward, and in terms of prevention and promotion, I think we’ve been making some really good headway since the beginning of this Assembly and whether or not the Minister sees that there is still a need for prevention and promotion in some of the regions or even across the territory, especially with our high obesity rates. We do have some organizations that have been doing some really good programs to try to combat the high obesity rates, cardiovascular, chronic diseases, and whether or not some of our funding can actually go to those organizations so they can run the programs more effectively and efficiently.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. I’ll take that as a comment. Was there a question there, Mr. Moses?
[Microphone turned off] …he’d be looking at working with these organizations and fund them a little bit more from our programs. I’ve talked about program duplication, but we’ve got organizations out there that are doing really good work on behalf of government and whether the Minister would sit down with these organizations and develop some contributions where they can support these successful programs.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We actually have the new Aboriginal health and community wellness division, and the wellness workers that we have within that division, that is their exact job.
Just in terms of the Anti-Poverty Strategy, I just want to commend the Minister for the work he’s been doing in that and also thank him for allowing standing committee to come to the last round table and meet with the representatives. I think members of the standing committee were really appreciative to see the work that’s been going into that. Just more of a comment and no more questions.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Committee, we’re on page 197, Department of Health and Social Services, community health programs, operations expenditure summary, $144.418 million.
Agreed.
Page 198, community health programs, grants, contributions and transfers, $113.874 million.
Agreed.
Page 200, community health programs, active positions. Questions?
Agreed.
Page 203, community social programs, operations expenditure summary, $28.199 million. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a couple of questions here. The first one has to do with the Child and Family Services Act. There are amendments coming forward for this legislation, from what I understand. I’d like to know from the Minister if the amendments to this piece of legislation are going to require extra expenditures, and if so, where are they in this budget?
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, the bill is coming forward in the next week or two for first reading and second reading, at which point it will be committee’s bill for 120 days. At this point in time, based on the changes that are coming, we don’t believe that there will be additional costs. We believe it’s a matter of using our money more appropriately and using the existing resources to the best effect, and the changes in the bill will actually give us better direction and better results without adding additional dollars.
Thanks to the Minister. One of the concerns that I have, and it was a fairly major recommendation from the Child and Family Services Act review that was done in the 16th Assembly and it’s been mentioned a number of times in this Assembly as well, is the gap in legislation for coverage for youths basically between 16 and 18 years. First of all, I’d like to ask the Minister if that gap is going to be dealt with in the amendments, and if so, I find it hard to believe that we could increase the services for this particular age group and that it’s not going to cost us money. Could I get an explanation? Thanks.
Yes, that is actually going to be in the act. The reason we don’t believe it’s going to cost us significant money, the reason we could manage within, is because we are finding ways today to provide some of those services whether it’s through voluntary approaches or otherwise. This is going to give us more ability to do it in a formal way, but we don’t believe it’s going to cost significantly more money.
Thanks to the Minister. My last comment on this area would be: Once the legislation is done and passed and has come into force, if the department determines that the changes in order to provide better services that the changes are going to mean an extra expenditure, is the Minister willing to come back to the House with a supplementary appropriation in order to provide effective and valid child and family services? Thank you.
Mr. Chair, with respect to the rollout of child and family services, we are spending a significant amount of money on child and family services today. The changes that are being proposed are going to increase efficiencies and provide better services. It doesn’t necessarily mean we need more money. It just means we really need to do better with the money we have, and many of these changes are going to give us the ability to do those things.
I do acknowledge that there is a fundamental change in how we provide child and family services being undertaken right now. It has a three to five-year rollout period. A number of the actions are happening right now. We believe those can be funded from within. As we roll out, we may realize that, you know what, we do need some more money, at which point we would be going to the Executive Council to seek additional dollars with the support of committee.
Mr. Chair, my other question has to do with the day shelters. We certainly have a day shelter here in the City of Yellowknife. I believe there’s at least one other day shelter elsewhere in another community. One of the things that were a problem when the Day Shelter was previously operated under another operator was a lack of programming. We kind of touched on this earlier, but what analysis has the department done with this new operator? There was a bit of a lull where the Day Shelter was not operating, and I think it was an opportunity to do some analysis and to do an evaluation of the previous operation. What analysis has been done to determine what programs and services are best put into the Day Shelter to assist the people that use it? Thank you.
Mr. Chair, during the hiatus between May and September, Yellowknife Health and Social Services actually went out and did a number of engagements with the public and other individuals about what types of programs and services they expected or would like to see, including actual conversations with the homeless people who happen to use the shelter, probably the best people to talk to about the types of things they wanted. That has helped to form some of the things that are going to be taking place.
There are a lot of significant changes between the old Day Shelter and the Day Shelter that we have today. One of them is around training that the staff are receiving. Staff are actually receiving training in this facility, unlike the old facility, in things like trauma, informed practice for service delivery, principles of crisis intervention as well as day-shelter-specific programming or training for programs that the Day Shelter current provider wishes to provide. I’d be happy to share that information with the specific programming with the Member once the Day Shelter is in a position to start delivering that. Some of that is not being delivered just yet because they are still in a tweak phase with respect to finishing some of the construction in that building.
Mr. Chair, I appreciate that explanation. My understanding is that the budget for the current Day Shelter is quite a bit more than the previous. I would like to know if that’s accurate, and I would also like to know where in the budget this money shows up. Thank you.
There is an increase. The department has budgeted $250,000. The city has contributed $50,000, so there is only $250,000 shown in the budget and I believe it’s in a different section than the one we’re currently in. I believe it’s in community health programs. So it’s in two parts, in the Anti-Poverty Fund and also in mental health and addictions. It’s $250,000 coming from us. The price tag is a little bit higher. For this fiscal year, we were able to get some one-time funding from some of the other departments in the GNWT, Justice and ECE. We’ll be seeking additional supports from other outside organizations and others to help cover some of the costs in 2015-16, otherwise we’ll have to find it from within.
Thanks to the Minister for that. I move we report progress.
---Carried
I will rise and report progress. Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Thank you, deputy minister and director. Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witnesses out of the Chamber.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Your committee has been considering Tabled Document 188-17(5), NWT Main Estimates 2015-2016, and would like to report progress. Mr. Speaker, I move that the report of Committee of the Whole be concurred with. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you. Do we have a seconder to the motion? Mr. Menicoche.
---Carried
Mr. Speaker, there will be a meeting of the Standing Committee on Sustainability of Rural and Remote Communities at adjournment today.
Orders Of The Day For Thursday, February 19, 2015, At 1:30 p.m.:
Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until Thursday, February 19th, at 1:30 p.m.
---ADJOURNMENT
The House adjourned at 5:55 p.m.
