Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, you know, I've been talking to a few constituents over the last few weeks and sitting at home, we've been really having an increase in cancer, stage 4. I hear a lot of stage 4 cancer in my constituents. I have people that are you know, that need a little bit of help here.
Mr. Speaker, I'm asking the Minister if she could start doing again, I guess prescreening of cancer patients in the riding across the NWT if she can for, you know, colorectal cancer, any kind of cancer, that's higher rates in our territory. If that's possible to start providing, I guess, checkup, checkups prior to being told they have stage 4 cancer. Our constituents need help, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Nunakput. Minister responsible for Health and Social Services.
Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I can't imagine a worse situation than being told that you have stage 4 cancer. And that's certainly something we want to avoid at all costs. Screening is something we could do. We could certainly do more of it. We've tried new approaches, specifically with colorectal cancer. There's a FIT test, that's an acronym, and it's a selfadministered test, and we've sent FIT tests out throughout the Beaufort Delta where there's a high incidence of colorectal cancer. And we have pretty good uptake on that. It's a very preliminary screening tool. There could be a more sophisticated screening done. And we recognize the cancer rates in the NWT are high in some areas, that colorectal is one area where screening is very important. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, if we could get I guess work together with the Minister's office to start getting prescreening for my constituents across Nunakput. She said that, you know, it's colorectal cancer. Lung cancer's most common diagnosed in women and long cancer,we just need a little bit of help because our whole region, the Beaufort Delta, people are, someone in someone's family's fighting cancer, and they need a little bit of help. So Mr. Speaker, I just wanted, you know, a commitment from my Minister to make sure that we could make a path forward to get prescreening tests done sooner rather than later. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don't have information to hand about how prescreening is decided now in Nunakput. But I'm certainly willing to ask questions and understand how it's done and to see whether there are ways in which we can make it more widely available and get back to the Member for Nunakput. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That's why, Mr. Speaker, I brought up my Member's statement this last week in regards to travel for medical, medical travel. And this is a part of it. So somebody misses this is a chain effect. And, you know, if we could stop that, it would be good. I know our staff works hard, her staff works hard in regards to making sure that people are getting out there and getting served, but there's got to be a way that we could work towards it again to make prescreening, because we're losing a lot of people, a lot of good people that shouldn't be. It shouldn't be having to take that stage 4, you know. Again yesterday, I just lost a friend, stage 4 cancer. And it really hurts. And when you're seeing it like that and when we can try to make a difference, Mr. Speaker, we should try to make a path forward. Thank you.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm sorry to hear about the Member's friend. Unfortunately all of us know people who have cancer or have had cancer and have lost people we love to it. It is very difficult.
I'm interested in screening because it is a means of preventing further interventions by the health system. It's better quality of life for the patients themselves, and it's just better overall if we can provide prevention in the form of prescreening rather than addressing problems when they get to such a severe stage. So that is something that I'm personally very interested in, and I'm willing to take up with respect to the Member's questions. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. February for Frame Lake.
