Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my Member's statement alluded to problems in small community health centre nurses for having diagnosing ailments especially of the cancerous types, could be colon, prostate, breast cancer, abdominal, and back pains. (Audio) CT scan in the small community. Can the Minister (audio) the procedure used at small community health centres to diagnose cancerous tumors? Mahsi.
Thank you, Member for Deh Cho. Minister responsible for Health and Social Services.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I'd like to thank the Member for the question. Of course we're all the concerned about the high rates of cancer, including colorectal cancer, that occur in the NWT.
I want to make a distinction to start with between screening and diagnosis. We actually have a colorectal cancer screening committee, and they've recently started work in the Deh Cho by providing what are called FIT kits to households so that they can use that to provide a sample which would be screened for colorectal cancer. The health centres cannot provide diagnosis. The public health nurse, or the community health nurses who are there of course see patients, evaluate their complaints, take note of whether it's a continued complaint, and then they would refer the patient to a higher level of care, whether that's a visiting physician or a nurse practitioner, and from there, there could be additional referrals to a specialist. So the situation for Fort Providence, the Member's primary community, would fall into that area. Thank you.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mahsi to the Minister for that answer. She did reference at some point there referring to a specialist, but I just want the Minister to be aware that I brought it up previously and with the present case of this Deline elder, they'd been to the health centre more than once and the community, it's been four or five times. And and I'm wondering if the Minister can acknowledge at what point would a patient be referred to a specialist for their ailment? Mahsi.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the referral onwards for diagnosis is provided by a healthcare professional. In the case of small health centres, that would be a community health nurse. If it's an emergency, the telehealth system is available for the community health nurse to call the Stanton emergency room and speak to a physician there. And then, as I say, when the visiting doctor comes, it's possible for that person to make a referral for a diagnosis. So those are the different ways that that's handled by medical health professionals who are working in the local community setting with the assistance of people who may be a phone call away through telehealth. Thank you.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mahsi to the Minister for that. I don't think my question was really answered because I've been stating that there's many residents probably up and down the territory that go to centres for an ailment, and like four or five times. And perhaps by the fifth time, they're being medevaced out. And it's at that point. So getting where we're missing something within the health centre, the diagnosis there.
Can the Minister advise that the department has any evaluations, evaluation processes in place to determine if small health centres nursing staff will require other training screening for cancer and other chronic diseases? Mahsi.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the community health nurses adhere to clinical practice guidelines for breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer. They will assess for symptoms and taking into account family history, age, risk factors, and other circumstances. And once again, this would be for screening.
So this is to not to make a diagnosis but to on a general basis, offer people the opportunity to be screened in or out of the risk of cancer based on their health indicators. Nurses are offered frequent professional development opportunities and we do have, as I mentioned previously, a colorectal cancer screening program. So this program would be well known to the nurses and used by them to deal with this particular type of cancer, which is one of the most prevalent in the NWT.
As I mentioned at the beginning, in the Deh Cho region the Member can look forward to seeing communication from the Department of Health and Social Services about screening for colorectal cancer. And I certainly encourage everyone to take advantage of that opportunity. It's free of charge and in your own home. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Deh Cho.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker, and mahsi to the Minister for that answer. I think she's answered my question, but I really wanted to stress that even though you say that nurses do ongoing training, I don't know we as the public here, but and I keep saying and I said it many times since I've gotten to the Assembly in 2019 that there's many times I hate using the word "misdiagnosis" but that's the only one that I can use that a lot of people been there and I'm saying it again. Like, they've been there four to five times. And I don't want to get into specifics of what happened to those people at this time, but it's serious in our small communities and this elder from Deline, you must have read the story too, he's been there numerous times. He was sent there with just a Tylenol. You know, and that screening processes. What and it's not determined on site, you know, they go to Yellowknife where there's actually CT scan machine that can determine stuff like this that we don't have in the small communities, and I'd really like the Minister and her department to start working on better processes of diagnosis a lot of the unknown ailments which can lead to serious, serious illness and even death. Mahsi.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it's not possible for me to comment on individual patient's cases because of privacy considerations. I just will go back again to the difference between screening and diagnosis. Screening can happen in the small health centres for colorectal cancer, cervical cancer. But you need to have no symptoms in order to be screened. You just need to show up. The diagnosis would happen in Yellowknife or further afield maybe in Edmonton.
I would say to the Member that the Department of Health and Social Services has a patient experience questionnaire available at this time to capture the experience of people who have used our services and gauge their satisfaction with them. So there are, I'm told, paper copies available at the health centres. It's also available online. And I would recommend that anyone who has received health services in the last year, whether they were satisfied with the service or not, complete the patient questionnaire so we can learn how we can do better with our services. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
