Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today to acknowledge a Range Lake constituent who needs very little introduction to Members of the House. I wish to acknowledge and congratulate the Honourable George L. Tuccaro, who has been reappointed as Commissioner of the Northwest Territories for a term of one year, from May 11, 2015, to May 10, 2016, and this will be his second term.
Mr. Tuccaro, who is a member of the Mikisew Cree First Nation of northern Alberta, has played a prominent role in the lives of Northerners, even prior to his initial appointment as our Commissioner.
Mr. Tuccaro enjoyed a long and illustrious career in public broadcasting with CBC North in Yellowknife, and we are the lucky few to get to hear his silky voice and smooth delivery when the Commissioner joins us here in the Chamber to open sessions of the Assembly or to provide assent to legislation passed by this House.
On behalf of all Members, I wish to extend my congratulations to Mr. Tuccaro and his wife, Marilyn, on his reappointment to our 16th Commissioner of the Northwest Territories. It’s a well-deserved honour and we wish him every continued success. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I rise to acknowledge and congratulate my Ndilo constituent Brent Betsina on his outstanding performance in the sport of judo at the Canada Winter Games in Prince George, BC.
Master Betsina, an active member of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation, is 18 years old and competed in the over-100 kilograms category at the Games. Brent has been active in the sport of judo for eight years and contributes his success to his role model and coach, Mario Desforges.
Brent went into the Games with a goal of having fun, having a positive attitude while competing and doing his best. Winning the Northwest Territories first medal since 2007, a silver medal in judo was a sweet bonus to these goals.
I invite all Members to congratulate Brent on his national achievement on behalf of the Northwest Territories at the Canada Winter Games – I wouldn’t be surprised to see him in this chair one year – and say well done, Brent. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just in follow-up from my Member’s statement, I have a few questions for the honourable Premier. I’d like to ask the Premier, as stated with this latest injunction that effectively has put on hold the superboards, can the Premier confirm that the Gwich’in Land and Water Board will be maintained like the Wek’eezhii Board until the related court cases are decided?
Thank you, Mr. Blake. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can confirm that the Supreme Court of the Northwest Territories suspended Section 253(2) of the Northwest Territories Devolution Act with regard to the MVRMA, all plans to come into force April 1, 2015. This will result in the preservation of all the regional land and water boards for now, including the Gwich’in Land and Water Board, and a delay in implementation of regional studies and cost recovery authorities.
As I mentioned, the regional boards, including the Gwich’in Land and Water Board, were scheduled for elimination as of April 1st.
I’d like to ask the Premier, how will the board’s effective operations be maintained and supported while the court case is being decided?
There will be no change in the operation of these boards and we have confirmed with AANDC that they will be assessing not only the court decision but also how to keep the current system functional. Our Department of Lands will also be doing a preliminary scan of significant projects that are currently within the MVRMA.
Can the Premier confirm which board members will be able to continue their work and how will any empty spots be addressed to ensure smooth operations? For example, with the Gwich’in, we don’t have a chair at the moment, so how will that position be filled?
My understanding is that all of the boards that have vacant appointments, they’ll fast track the appointments. The Gwich’in Land and Water Board has total members of five. They need three for a quorum. There is one current vacancy of a chair, one appointment expiring in the next year on November 8, 2015. With the fast-tracking of board appointments, we expect that it will be business as usual.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In follow-up to my Member’s statement today, I have questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services. In a budget document that we have just been considering during this session, there is an item under program detail called residential care, adults and children, and that number of $45.807 million is for children and adults who are receiving care for an extended period of time to meet their physical, emotional, spiritual and psychological needs, and it includes such things as long-term care facilities, group homes for adults and residential care both inside and outside of the Northwest Territories. I believe that there is also a supplementary appropriation being proposed to actually cause that number to go higher.
I’d like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services to break down that number, if he could, between northern and southern placements.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The Minister of Health, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The budget for ’14-15 was $17.6 million for southern placements, and that covers 69 adults and 37 youth.
I think everybody would agree that that is a very substantial sum of money that this government pays out to southern facilities for the care and keeping of Northerners.
I’d like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services, when is the last time that repatriation opportunities for some of these 69 adults and 37 children were contemplated and considered by his department? Thank you.
Last fiscal year the Members actually requested that we do that work, and the director of territorial services did conduct a review of all the individual files of all of our residents who happen to be in the South looking for similar conditions or similar treatment requirements so that we could repatriate a block of individuals. Unfortunately, the cases are so unique and so many of them are of such high demand we weren’t able to identify a similar group that would be reasonable to repatriate.
But I will say that we do review the files of our individuals biannually to see if there is any opportunity to repatriate the individuals whether or not or regardless of a similar condition where we can repatriate a block of individuals at one time. Thank you.
I’d like to also ask, in the facilities that we do have here in the Northwest Territories, could he tell us on any given day, like today, are there vacancies available in those facilities, or are we completely maxed out and couldn’t it be that referrals that are made to the South are actually, in fact, because there is no room in the facilities we have here? Thank you.
I’d actually have to have the department do a bit of an analysis. There are so many facilities that we support, whether it’s hospitals or the type of facility that the Member brought up in her statement, I couldn’t say for certain what our vacancy rate is on those.
I will say for an individual to be eligible for out-of-territory placement they must meet specific criteria. One of the following: they must have a diagnosis of a mental illness or a traumatic brain injury; a genetic disorder or a significant development or physical disability; they must have a serious emotional, behavioural, psychological or medical needs that can’t be met here in the Northwest Territories; they must require a higher level of care or services that are not available in the Northwest Territories; they must require residential or institutional services as the result of being declared not criminally responsible, and this is something we work on with the Department of Justice; or they must require regular psychiatric hospitalization services, services that aren’t available here in the Northwest Territories. If we can deliver it here in the Northwest Territories, we do, and if we don’t have the capacity, we do have to ship our residents south from time to time.
As I said, the director did a thorough review of all the files and we were really looking for an opportunity to bring a bulk or similar-type conditions north, keep the money in the North, employ in the North. But given the huge variety and the different conditions, we weren’t able to find a like condition or patients with similar conditions that could be accommodated in a facility here in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Specifically with regard to group homes for adults and children, are there any vacancies currently available here in the Northwest Territories in the group homes that already exist? It only makes sense to me that if there is no vacancy, the tendency would be to have to send them to southern placements. Thank you
I’ll commit to get that information on our current vacancies. They change from time to time. But once again, I go back to my previous comments about the specific individual conditions that an individual must have and it’s for services that aren’t available here in the Northwest Territories, you have to meet those conditions. So if we can provide it in the Northwest Territories, we do our best to provide it here in the Northwest Territories. Unfortunately, we do have individuals with incredibly high needs, 24/7 care that we can’t meet. We don’t have the expertise to provide those services here. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. About four years ago a child from Trout Lake could not get authorization for a medevac plane for a serious illness. The grandparent was deeply concerned, not to mention the stress of the mother. He consequently chartered his own plane because the child’s lips were turning blue.
While in Fort Simpson, the doctor said, “It’s a good thing you brought her here,” because she had a case of severe croup, potentially life-threatening for a child without medical attention.
Can the Minister of Health and Social Services explain exactly how the new Med-Response would handle a situation like this? Would it be the same, or would they be able to make a call for a medevac that will save a life? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Minister of Health, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Prior to the implementation of Med-Response, a nurse in a region, regardless of the region, would call a physician who was associated with that particular region. For instance, in the Sahtu, if there was no doctor available in Simpson, they would call the medical director who may be located in another province, which was often the case, who may not have known exactly the current status of our air ambulance team. Now with Med-Response, rather than trying to figure out who a CHR or CHW in a community like Trout Lake, they would actually call one number in the Northwest Territories. On that number they would have direct access to health professionals who can make decisions and provide immediate diagnosis and direction to the CHRs in the communities, which in the case of that child would likely have resulted in a much quicker time for an air ambulance to get into that community and get the child out.
The bottom line is the CHRs and CHWs throughout the Northwest Territories as well as all nurses in our health centres have a number to call that will give immediate access to health professionals, whether it’s an emerg doc, pediatric doc or any other specialist, plus NPs and, at the same time, have the air ambulance dispatcher on the phone at the same time so they can all make a united decision together. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I am very pleased to hear the explanation from the Minister. Of course, this is not the first time the residents of small communities had to call their own plane because a medevac was thought not to be necessary.
I would like to ask the Minister about what assurances and successes has the department had to date because they have been up and running since November, I believe. What assurances and successes have they had to date in responding to emergencies? Is there documentation or evaluations in place or contingency checks on the effectiveness of the Med-Response system? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Since November 30th we have been in a soft launch phase, which is basically a trial phase to work out some of the bugs that we assume would come in with this new state-of-the-art program. We wanted to make sure that we got it right. We have only just recently gone live and we continue to evaluate. There is actually an evaluation mechanism in place to monitor the calls and help us continually improve and evolve as the times change.
In the test phase we coordinated 698 clinical consults from all the authorities; 351 were air ambulance flights. We were actually - I think this is incredibly good news - able to coordinate one aircraft to pick up two patients from different communities, both going to Edmonton, and we used the same aircraft to get them down there, so we were actually able to combine our resources and get some serious benefits.
Also, during the test phase, there were nine different situations where a health practitioner from a community called into the Med-Response unit believing that they needed an air ambulance, but once they received full consult from doctors and specialists in Yellowknife they were able to avoid the need for air ambulance. So we were able to reduce the number of air ambulances that have actually been dispatched. We have been able to get economies of scale by having a pick-up of more than one patient and we have been able to provide significant clinical advice and consults to our communities when they are in need. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I am pleased to see some of those results and, as well, it’s about restoring the confidence of the people in the smaller communities that our system will be there for them. Further to that, how will they augment the training for community health workers to work and learn this new system? I would suggest perhaps bringing them to Yellowknife to see the facilities and to meet some of the staff of the new Med-Response centre that they will be dealing with, hopefully not on a daily basis but it is always good to have a familiar face when you’re on the phone, especially in times of emergency. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
At this time there hadn’t been plans to actually bring professionals into Yellowknife to see the facility. What is important is the dialogue that occurs between the health practitioners in the field and our Med-Response team. We have put together some documentation manuals to help individuals understand the terminology and how things work. I do take the point; it would be good for our employees to see them become more familiar. I will certainly work with the department to explore training opportunities to ensure our staff are as familiar as possible and have an opportunity to be effective with the use of Med-Response. So we will certainly look at opportunities for training. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I noticed that the Med-Response system is not open to the general public. Maybe the Minister can explain that. In previous emergencies and times of distress, not only the health care worker was calling the regional centres but the family themselves wanted to hear the answers from the nurse in charge or whoever’s in charge while they wait however long for the medevac and that kind of stuff.
What kind of public information is out there to help families in times of distress? Perhaps it will complicate things if everybody is phoning, but what does the Med-Response system see for the public? Thank you.
The Med-Response is not a public program. It’s a program for the staff to help coordinate the internal workings of the system to make sure our staff on the front line have the information they need. They will be able to transmit or translate any of the information received from professionals on the line to anybody who happens to be in their health centre or health station. It’s not open to the public. The public aren’t expected to call that number. It is a functional, internal process that helps coordinate all health services in the communities when required by the health practitioners in the communities. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I described the revealing back-story that gave rise to a recent CBC request for daycare inspection reports. Instead of seizing the opportunity to demonstrate compliance with the law, the department put a hefty price tag on that information that is freely and publicly available in many other jurisdictions. My questions today are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
In 2010, in response to the Auditor General’s criticism on daycare inspections, the department said it was short on staff. Can the Minister indicate what has the department done to address the staff shortage since 2010? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Since the Auditor General’s recommendations came out, we have done a considerable amount of work following through with those recommendations. Within my department we have increased the number of regional early childhood consultants to better serve the smaller communities. Not only that but we also created and hired a territorial inspection coordinator. Those are just some of the key aspects of how we remedied the situation at hand. Mahsi.
Can the Minister indicate what significant improvements have been made in daycare facilities since the Auditor General’s unsatisfactory grade in 2012? Thank you.
As I stated earlier, we have made significant improvements within my department on those recommendations that were brought to my attention. As a department,we are in compliance at all levels, and all annual inspections are completed in all licenced daycares and also all the day homes in the Northwest Territories. Those are front and foremost importance for my department to follow through with all the inspections that are happening. It’s in place, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.
My question is to what significant improvements were there. We still didn’t hear what they were. Can the Minister clearly assure the public, does the department have corrective actions and plans for daycare facilities which were found to have blocked fire exits, uncovered electrical outlets and chemicals within reach of small children? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
HON. JACKSON LAFFERTY: All these inspections are completed, and if there were any deficiencies found during the inspections, they were followed through with by regional early childhood consultants who are in regular contact with the contractors and also in communication with the licenced operators.
We’re doing what we can to work with the operators so there’s a safe environment for our children in care, and also my department is working very closely with the regional health inspectors, as well, and not only that but the fire inspectors ensure compliance with all the regional centres and the community centres as well. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. “Doing what we can” seems to be a common response these days. The governments of Alberta, Quebec, Ontario and Nova Scotia provide online links to daycare inspection status reports or the reports themselves. Clearly, ATIPP is not a barrier to this transparency.
But to the question, will this Minister follow suit and make daycare inspection reports freely and publicly available? Thank you.
Since that information came to light in my department, we have been working very closely on ways to share relevant inspection information in a format that allows parents to make informed decisions on child care while, at the same time, protecting the privacy of child care staff. My department is also committed to making inspection information available to the public, and this will be available starting 2015-16. We’re making improvements within our department and we’re moving forward on that. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
