Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. Can the Minister tell us what her department is doing to increase supports for seniors who are aging in place and maybe feeling the mental health impacts due to the restrictions around COVID-19, and whether or not she plans to increase those supports, given the CPHO's orders are likely to remain in place until the fall? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Great Slave. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am happy to say that there are a number of services in place for seniors. Because homecare is in place in most communities, they have been providing some additional supports, such as phone calls and visits, that are above and beyond what they would have provided before COVID. In communities where there are usually day programs, there have been staff who have been reassigned to provide support one-on-one with people because people are not gathering for the day program at this point, given the COVID-19 pandemic.
Within long-term care, there have been extra efforts to screen residents for depression, knowing that that is a possibility, as well as providing for family and friends to visit in very controlled circumstances; to deliver letters on behalf of families; to organize virtual calls, so that there is that connection between the people in long-term care and the people who love them.
As well, the mental health supports that are available to every person in the NWT are, of course, available to seniors, and that includes the Community Counselling Program, which I spoke about earlier; the NWT Help Line; and the on-the-land healing fund, anything that the community is doing with on-the-land; and of course, through their healthcare provider. If they disclose that they are feeling depressed or lonely, it will be a response by the primary healthcare provider to assist the senior to find the services that they need. Thank you.
I was asking about aging in place, not necessarily about the seniors' homes, but I am glad to hear that they are doing that. I don't really think that many of the seniors who are isolating and feeling the depression of COVID impacts are going to be heading out on the land, so I am not sure that that's really a support to seniors aging in place. Moving on, I would like to know how many people are over the age of 60 in the Northwest Territories, and how many of those seniors have received at least one round of the vaccination?
According to the NWT Bureau of Statistics, as of July 1, 2020, there are approximately 6,594 persons aged 60 and older in the NWT, and I will have to get back to the Member with the number who have received vaccines who are over 60.
When the Minister returns with that information, I am going to guess she is also going to have to come back with the next question I have, which is: What is the current COVID vaccine distribution broken down by demographic group?
I have also asked the Minister, and not received a response, to how many extra doses have been given out. A response received of "we're not tracking that" is not acceptable to me. All you need to do is take the number of appointments you have, the numbers of doses administered, and subtract them to find out how many extra vials have been opened and distributed to people of non-priority groups.
We are giving the vaccine on a priority group basis. Everybody who lives in a small community without a resident nurse and who is over 18 has had the opportunity to receive the first dose. We have also, of course, prioritized people who live and work in long-term care and other congregate settings like jails and shelters. We have also prioritized frontline staff because of their connection to healthcare, and we have prioritized people who have chronic or multiple medical conditions. We have not broken it out by demographic. It is broken out by need, as determined by the Chief Public Health Officer. That's how it has been broken out.
The question about tracking the number of people who have had doses: We have given out 12,241 doses so far. We are, to be perfectly honest, putting a lot of time into keeping up with the Public Health Agency of Canada reporting, and we have no additional time to answer the Member's question.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am not really very concerned with how the department would report their statistics. The priority groups actually would be considered to be a demographic, the demographic being they are high priority for different reasons. I would still consider that to be a breakdown by demographic group and would appreciate having those numbers.
Moving on, how would seniors who are not technologically savvy reach out to the department to get help navigating not only the COVID vaccine forms online, but any other online services that they may be required to use? Is there a specialized help line for seniors to call that will actually be answered and they can get people to walk them through the programs? Thank you.
As the Member may know, there is a helpline for seniors. Seniors could call there. They could call their local health centre. They could call the system navigator, health system navigator. I invite the Member to look that up and put it on her Facebook page. We, as a department, realize that people at different ages have different communication styles. We are fully aware that elders are generally not using computers and other digital methods of communication, so we have made an effort to communicate with them on local radio stations, through the newspaper, through posters, and even through door-to-door visits in some cases, to make sure that they are aware of the opportunity to be vaccinated. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
