Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. My Member's statement spoke at length of our knowledge-keepers and the life they have lived in their communities while passing on their knowledge of the land to the next generation of their families. This Assembly recognizes the need to keep the knowledge-keepers to age in their communities and at the same time to keep their dignity as human beings.
Mr. Speaker, my community of Fort Providence currently has an abandoned former health centre building that would make an ideal long-term care facility for our elders. We can also make space for people with severe disabilities and offer other programs, such as the "A New Day" program, which targets male offenders of a partnership. Just a note, there are two separate entrances, so there are two separate areas of the health centre, and also a basement unit. My question to the health Minister is: will she make a commitment to turning this building into a long-term care centre for our community? Mahsi.
Thank you, Member for Deh Cho. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am going to take that question on notice as I do not have any specific information about the condition of the Fort Providence health centre. Thank you.
It seems that only the larger centres get all the services and buildings, including victims' shelters, family violence centres, sobering centres, homeless shelters, and the list goes on. Can the health Minister make a commitment to look at instituting a small-sized, long-term care centre in Fort Providence?
Long-term care facilities are for people who need complex medical care from nurses 24 hours a day. They are people who have needs that are beyond families to provide. As a result of the level of care required, these facilities are located in regional centres, and that is a place where there is a broader range of services available and also a greater number of staff who can work with the elders. I realize it's important to keep elders in their communities, but I also realize that, in order to provide them with the care they need for their own quality of life, it may not be possible to do that in the community until the ends of their lives.
Mahsi for that, Minister. It saddens me to know that this government can spend huge sums of money on large-ticket items that are not a priority for Members on this side of the House. Every time a small community wants to offer programs that the larger centres offer, we are shrugged off, making large excuses of "You need qualified people." Those qualified people can be relocated or new positions created in the small communities to accommodate so that we can have this program. No, we cannot have something that will stimulate our much-needed local economies, that will include creating much-needed jobs. Can this Minister of health begin the process of providing all the small communities with the much-needed programs offered by the large centres so that our residents do not have to flock to the regional centres?
Thank you for that question. It is a priority of this government to help elders to age in place, and there are many things that need to be lined up in order to make that mandate commitment a reality. One is housing, that people have housing that is suitable and affordable for them to live in. The second is that we have a robust home and community care program that can visit more able adults in their homes and provide them with personal support worker services. That could be things like driving the elder to an appointment. It could be cleaning their oven. It could be taking them grocery shopping. It's whatever the elder needs to be able to stay in place. There is a drive now to expand the homecare services to better define what is being offered and where it's being offered, but underpinning all this work is the commitment to have elders age in place. That's where we're at.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Deh Cho.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. As I have been going on about our elders, our knowledge-keepers, to keep them in our communities, this is so that the children, their children and grandchildren, and other residents of the community can have direct access to them within the community without having to drive out-of-town or to another centre. If they go to another centre, you've got to understand from their point of view, the elders, the ones that are displaced into another centre, that they don't have family around. They're in a totally strange environment. They've never ever left the community that's the Dene people. They know the people. They know the land. They have all their traditional foods available to them right in their community. It is something that I really encourage you to look at, instituting into the small communities to help more. I know you're saying we've got homecare services and everything. That's just not enough. It's to house them into some centres in the community where they can be looked after, and we can hire specialized people to do the care for them. I'd really encourage the Minister to start looking at institutions, have programs for all the small communities in the North. Mahsi.
I take that comment.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
