Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, constituents and other members of the public have brought to me their concerns around wait times of six to 12 weeks to access mental health services, far greater than the government's own estimate of two to three weeks. Can the Minister of Health and Social Services respond to these concerns today with an updated and current estimate of the approximate wait times to access mental health care services in the Northwest Territories? Thank you.
Masi. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, two things: number one, for issues that are critical or urgent, there really are no wait times. We triage these individuals right away, and, if the triage identifies it as being an urgent or a critical issue, they will see somebody right away.
However, the Member is correct. There are wait times for non-urgent counselling services here in the Northwest Territories, and some of them are quite long. Yellowknife, for adults, it is up to three months; for children, two months. In Behchoko, it is anywhere from four to five weeks' wait time for non-urgent counselling services. In Hay River, it is actually the worst in the territories, at about 35 weeks. I know the Member has raised a number of questions on that, and we are trying to find some solutions there. In Fort Smith, it is one to two weeks. In the smaller communities, we tend not to have the same kind of wait lists, typically. There are times when we may have vacancy or someone goes on holiday, that there might be a short-term wait list, but typically not in the smaller communities, but I do hear the Member.
You know, a non-urgent issue can become an urgent if it is not addressed. Waiting eight months, I think it is a pretty significant wait time for people who are looking for that kind of care. The Minister mentioned urgent or critical cases. Can he share the policy that governs a critical or urgent case?
Mr. Speaker, I believe I heard the Member correctly when he indicated eight-month wait times. If the Member is aware of somebody who is waiting eight months, we are trying to constantly improve, and I would strongly encourage the Member to seek consent from that individual so that they can approach us so we could find out what is going on in that particular file because, on average, three months in Yellowknife is what we are seeing for non-urgent issues.
Mr. Speaker, all community counselling programs with wait times or wait lists have an intervention plan in place to ensure that urgent clients do not slip through the cracks. This recognizes that individuals may change over the time that they are waiting. They may come in, they may not be deemed "urgent," but it may escalate as a result of changing situations. As a result of these plans, triaging of all clients on referral are prioritizing urgent clients. We are offering same-day counselling to individuals who are identified as urgent, and when possible, short-term workshops and other things are done in the community to give our residents options. If an individual is on the wait list, and they are told, "Your appointment is going to be in six weeks," and there is a change in their situation, they should immediately reach out to the Health and Social Services providers, who can do a new, updated assessment to determine urgency, and if appropriate, they can take advantage of these services.
Once again, if the Member is aware of somebody that is eight months, please reach out to them and encourage them to either talk to quality assurance or get consent from the Member so that we can look into this file and figure out what went wrong.
In the event that there is someone who is on the edge and is put on one of those queues, but feels that they need the treatment, and they seek, under their own initiative, to go and obtain treatment, does the government have any policies to assist those people with any financial costs incurred if their case would have fallen under the healthcare and they simply could not wait in the queue any longer?
All of the programs and services, counselling and treatment services, that we provide are based on a referral. They would need a referral for us to provide them with financial supports and coverage.
Many insurance providers don't need our same-level referral. They can always approach their own insurance provider if they have it, recognizing that not everybody has it, but typically, no, if someone seeks treatment outside of our system, we wouldn't cover their costs.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Recently, the Minister spoke of new on-the-land healing programs that would address some of this backlog by providing more local options. There is around $5 million from the federal government to support this. This government itself has been budgeting $1.23 million for several years now.
With the eight contribution agreements that have been signed that the Minister spoke of recently in the House, how many real, actual programs that people can access to get these kind of services and avoid wait lists has this money created? Thank you.
I know that the Member is aware, but just before I answer the on-the-land question, we are doing a number of things to try and help us control and reduce the wait times. One of the things that we are doing is actually providing child and youth counsellors across the territory, which has opened up a service that really doesn't exist for many of our youth today who are using the system as a whole. We are putting more positions in, and we are trying to create more resources for people.
Mr. Speaker, we have $1.23 million. The $5 million that the Member is referring to, I think, may be referring to the wellness money that flows through the federal government, through us, to the Indigenous governments. They get to choose how to spend those dollars. We don't dictate how they spend those dollars.
We have $1.23 million available for on-the-land programming. We make $125,000 available to each of the Indigenous governments. They can ask for more, up to $30,000, on a case-by-case basis. Right now, we have a number of individual Indigenous governments who are running the programs. I could go through the list, but I think that it might just be easier to provide the Member that information in writing, because it is quite detailed. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Hay River North.
