Ms. Mathison.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. My apologies. I should have added that, as well, to my last answer. That falls within the health centres. It's probably a mix of health centres and hospitals, depending on which community the supports lie, but it's between those two objects there. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to look at page 181. I am looking at the contributions generally to NGOs and other organizations to support Northwest Territories residents. I notice that we are really stagnant to our standard budget and not a lot of line item increases, other than the Health and Social Services Authorities funding. I am disappointed to see that. I think that we have had a lot of conversation around mental health and addictions supports and such. I know that NGOs are really good at making their money stretch and are being very effective in our communities, recognizing that a large portion of them are in Yellowknife. However, that does spill out to other communities. Can the Minister speak to why there is no increase to the amount of funding to all of these programs, given that people are starting to really feel the effects of the isolation of COVID-19? Thank you.
Minister.
Thank you. The core mental health services are provided by the NTHSSA, the Tlicho Community Services Agency, and the Hay River Health and Social Services Authority. These grants and contributions are primarily community-based funds, such as the Anti-Poverty Fund is available by application by communities across the NWT. The Child and Family Services contribution is to the Foster Families Coalition. The community-based suicide prevention is brand new this year. We haven't had a chance to find out whether that's the right amount of money or not. The community wellness initiatives, that's another community-based fund which we've just started advertising for applications for. These are primarily funds that are available for people to apply for, like peer support and on-the-land. They are not generally supporting specific NGOs like the Spruce Bough, the Yellowknife Women's Society, or the YWCA. These are more funds that we provide to communities to do their own programming. Thank you.
Thank you. Member.
Thank you for that. That doesn't really answer my question. As all of these groups are where these projects or this funding can be accessed by these community organizations or whomever, that, to me, seems like an area where we would want to be focusing more money, given the current situation of what's going on, particularly if this is something that different organizations can access. The conditions around them could be made a lot more flexible, given the restrictions of COVID and the inability of a lot of organizations to operate in the same way that they have in the past. Maybe they could be accessing some of this funding to help them adapt their programming to be virtual and things like that. I just would like to reiterate that I find it extremely disappointing that we are not supporting more of the funding that would allow for non-governmental people to access money to provide supports to our people because I often hear the GNWT is failing at doing this themselves. I do recognize it is a growing problem across the country and the world, and most healthcare systems are taxed in dealing with it. Thank you.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will take that as a comment.
Thank you. Member.
Thank you for that, Mr. Chair. I am just looking at the active positions. Again, seeing that there have been 10 positions added to the headquarters, again, not to the regional offices, could the Minister maybe speak to why a decision was made to increase headquarters staffing versus putting those positions elsewhere? Thank you.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
I have to find what page that is. Here it is. I'm just going to reiterate a point I made a little earlier. The department provides the administration, policy, legislation, communications, and oversight functions for what the health authorities do. It is, just by default, here in Yellowknife. There are 12 new positions. I see here that there is a Healthy Family Program regional coordinator in Hay River and another in Inuvik. The others are, as the Member said, based here. It doesn't mean that they do all of their work here, but it means that they are, within larger groups, add-ons to other initiatives. It wouldn't be easy to put one person out in Behchoko, for example, with these kinds of programs. They need to be working within a group of people. For the community-based monitoring of seasonal influenza, it wouldn't make sense to put an epidemiologist in Behchoko when all of the other epidemiologists are in Yellowknife. That's the reason that almost all of these new positions are located in Yellowknife and not in other places. Thank you.
Thank you. Member.
Yes, I appreciate that, that there would be specialist-type situations or positions that would need to be with their fellow. I think we talked about that a lot in engineering collaboration. However, some of the items that you listed that these new positions are covering have to do with the administration. They have to do with things that sound very computer-oriented, very much sitting at a desk, I would just maybe again, as a comment, urge the Minister to consider, given our priority and mandates to increase employment in small communities, that we look at thinking outside the box and looking to have virtual collaboration instead of always in person. Thank you.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you. I will take that as a comment.
Thank you. Member.
I'm good. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Nunakput.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just in regards to page 179, it's all based in, the community healthcare clinics in my riding, I'm hoping to make sure that the adequate doctors visit in the community more. Then it's kind of in regards to -- especially for the cultural, in regards to the community groups for languages, too, for translators that are coming in. Where are the translators? Do they have them on call in regards to for the doctors because a lot of our elders, they won't say anything in regards to when they're being talked to. Proper interpretation, is that being done? I'll start off with that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you. I want to do something a little unusual and ask the Member a question. What happens now? If somebody appears in one of your community health clinics and they need help with interpretation, who helps?
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't know what staff in the communities, who do they call? Is it a number they call? I don't even know that because we never -- in Tuktoyaktuk, per se, I have elders in Ulukhatok that need translation. Are there people that are hired in the communities to do that? Are they on an on-call basis, or they're full staff? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister.
Thanks for that explanation. I don't know the answer to that, so I'll see if the deputy minister knows. Thank you.
Thank you. Mr. Cooper.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have two primary ways of supporting interpretation services. We've got interpretation available at and through the Stanton Territorial Hospital for seven official languages. We also have, for after-hours -- while Stanton will provide an outreach and I believe they're on call, as well, there's also after-hours translation available through CanTalk, which is a specialized service that is available 24 hours a day by phone or by email or by Internet, and they offer services throughout the territory. Of course, through the relationship between the provider and the family, there's also work that can be done to ensure that family members may be able to participate in and be part of that group that help with the translation, if necessary. Thank you.
Thank you. Member.
Thank you. Just in regards to that, thank you for that. Are all dialects covered in regards to Inuinnaqtun, Siglit? Are those covered in this CanTalk? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll turn again to Mr. Cooper.
Mr. Cooper.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun, forgive me if I've mispronounced that, but those are two through CanTalk, and we have Inuvialuktun in addition through the Stanton service.
Thank you. Member.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I thank the Minister for that. I've got a little bit of issues that I have, to get to a point like with prevention with the nursing station into the hospitals, that interaction with the health centre in the hospital, say, of Inuvik. How does it work in regards to making sure -- I'm having a lot of people with cancer that are too late, stage 4. I have a couple of individuals that I heard of in my riding. How does that work in regards to follow-up to making sure that they're being seen. I know that when they're in the system with Alberta, when they go down, come here, they get assessed, or in Inuvik, and then they get sent out. Some of them are, the wait time is too long. Is there any way to start shortening that up in regards to services for them because the cancer, when they're coming back, it's stage 4. You can't come back from that. I just need, could we try to work on time in regards to service for the communities? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you. I recognize that that's a terrible diagnosis. It's frightening. In terms of the service that is provided in Alberta, I don't know what ability we have to influence that. It was my understanding that, once the patient was connected with an oncologist at a place like the Cross Cancer Institute, that they took on the case, then, and the timing and the follow-up. I don't know if we have, as a health system, a way to speed that up. I'll look to the deputy minister. He may be more familiar with this. Thank you.
Thank you. Deputy Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We do have two cancer care navigators that support when a person has been diagnosed with cancer, they are there to support, helping the person navigate the clinical pathway. Offering virtual appointments where possible, and they work with the patient, with their family, and the healthcare team, including bridging between here and, of course, the Cross so that they can support them throughout their journey. That's the intention of those two positions. I would add we also have a medical oncology social worker who also can play a role in helping.
Thank you. Member.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just regarding that, has any thought been given, Madam Minister, in regards to the healthcare advocates in regards to helping patients who can't really speak out for themselves, the healthcare advocate that we brought up two weeks ago in the House here? Is there any thought given to that, trying to promote that? One or two in the Delta, five here in Yellowknife, but is there any way to do that? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you. It's my understanding that the cancer-care navigators have an advocacy function, but I think what you're talking about is more about the general patient navigator, not only those with a cancer diagnosis. Yes, that's an interesting question, and I understand that some work is going on to look at the possibility of instituting that kind of a service. It would be part of our providing culturally safe and confidence-building service to Indigenous people, and it may also help with the request that we get for escorts, non-medical escorts, that if people got off the plane and saw someone they recognize from their community, that would be very reassuring to help them get connected with the services they need. I don't think there's a specific date on which this is going to come into place. For more about this process, I'd ask once again the deputy minister to expand. Thank you.
Thank you. Mr. Cooper.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. In addition to the patient navigation services through CancerCare, we are making changes to the way primary healthcare is delivered, creating interdisciplinary teams. The hope of that is that individuals will have support to be able to navigate. We're sort of early day with that. We've got 10 teams rolled out here. We've got two demonstration projects, Fort Smith and Fort Good Hope, beginning. We certainly are looking at this question of how to support people with advocacy, with navigation services, and the authority is taking a look as they are standing up more services and improving the patient experience. They have established an office that is looking at this through their quality division, and so I do expect that we will see more thinking on this question in future business planning. Thank you.
Thank you. Member.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just in regard to that, teams, again, that's what we need in regard to community health and wellness. That's what we need to be doing, especially small communities, remote communities. My last question is about the escorts. Is there a way to let our community health centres know how an escort is approved? If the doctor approves it, it's approved. Correct? If not, they need clarity on that, and it should be brought into our health centres across the territory in regard to that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
