Debates of May 30, 2024 (day 19)

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, amongst the three authorities, if I understand it correctly, could I get the breakout of how many in each authority and adding the specific dollar amount of contribution to that allotment? So in other words how many are in the Inuvik authority and how much that's distributed financially and then sucessively. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

We can provide that information to committee.

Thank you. I'll go to the Member from Yellowknife Centre.

Yes, I'll take that. Is it lengthy? Because then it makes it difficult to ask my next question. But I'll take it as well in paper. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Yes, we can provide that the Member. Just, we don't have all of it like, I have the number, 56.5. How we break it out, I'd have to provide that later unless you want to sit here all night, we can calculate it.

Okay, thank you. I'm going to go to Yellowknife Centre, the Member.

Thank you. It makes it difficult to ask my next question but I'm willing to work with you folks. The challenge, of course, on my next question is I'd like to know what the normal staffing capacity at each region authority thereafter including what dollars amounts are being not spent for doctors. So that makes it very difficult to ask my next question. Perhaps the Minister sees where I'm going and maybe someone, including herself, is able to answer that. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.

Thank you. I'm going to pass it to my ADM, Jeannie Mathison, to see if she can help answer this question. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the ADM.

Speaker: MS. JEANNIE MATHISON

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll speak in terms of FTEs just to I don't have the dollars tied here on this page. But there are 56 and a half funded family physicians, and 28.9 of those are currently filled. So that's about 50 percent. There are 25 specialists, and about half of those are also filled with resident doctors right now. So in total, 81 funded physicians, and 41 of them are currently filled. The vacancies are generally staffed with locums. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Yellowknife Centre.

Thank you. And I'm assuming you'll have the breakout provided in written form so I won't keep beating a dead horse.

So does the cost of the locums eat up the full remaining approximately 40 doctor spaces in the I'm assuming the financial dollars, which I don't have here, but I'm sure you understand the point is that do the locums eat up the remainder of the money? Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.

Yes, we usually end up having all of the budgeted item for physicians used up by the permanent and the locum doctors, and sometimes we may even go over, so.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Yellowknife Centre.

Yeah, no, thank you. With the response of the other written information that the Minister said she'll provide, can I find out where outside the regular authorities we go? So, for example, I'm assuming we don't have a doctor in Fort Simpson as an example, but do we send locums there? Is that charged to the, for example, the remaining amount I'm trying to find out how we get doctors into the other regions outside of the main three, and what is that cost. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess each region so I know in the Beaufort Delta, the physicians are scheduled to travel from like, if they're hired as indeterminate doctors in the Beaufort Delta or locums to fill the vacancies, they are all scheduled to each community has its scheduled allotment of visits per month and those doctors will service those communities. The same thing in the south. There's different models for different areas. I mean, if you want more detail I can pass it on to the deputy minister to describe the south of the and there's the doctors from Yellowknife that travel out. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Okay, thank you. Time ran out. Because we got the translators here, we're going to take a 15minute break.

SHORT RECESS

Order. Okay, we're going to continue on. We're going to do a hard stop at 9:30, so last ten minutes, so it'll be 9:20, so we'll continue on until 9:20, and then we'll get the Speaker back in the House. We'll continue on.

Next on the list I have here is the Member from Yellowknife North.

Shauna Morgan

Yellowknife North

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Now, I know there's many things that I'd like to speak about but I want to focus my limited time here it's already late on the midwifery program and my understanding of its potential. So my understanding is that a lot of work has actually happened over the last few years even though it seems on paper that positions have remained vacant and the potential of the program has just sort of languished. What I've heard is that actually a lot of ground work has been done to lay the framework for a territorial program. And that has been the focus is even though, you know, work might some work might need to start in Yellowknife or be based in Yellowknife I shouldn't say start. There's already work that's being done in the South Slave. But what I'm understanding is that Yellowknife could play a really important role in territorialwide program.

As my fellow Members mentioned, there obviously are many births in Yellowknife so it's an important training ground, training site. And the vision would be to expand the program to many other communities outside Yellowknife but the fear is that if the YKbased portion of the program is, you know, destroyed completely, that that could actually jeopardize the program across the entire NWT.

So one idea is to that I heard today actually, potentially we could reduce the budget that was on the books for the last few years but keep plugging away at the groundwork for another couple years and keep laying the foundations to carry along that road towards the vision of a territorywide midwifery program. I know that there are two midwives in training who are eager to begin work in YK once they're done school. And they're not done yet but, again, that the pieces were being put in place and just to sort of abandon that or would be a real shame at this point.

So what I would throw out there as a possibility is that we could stay the course but perhaps pull back on costs from sort of the full amount that had been allocated from the program.

What I'm wondering is if the Minister would be willing to meet with NWT Midwives Association to better understand this groundwork that has been done, the implications of just sort of cutting all of the expansion money at this point, and try to find some kind of reasonable compromise to not lose all the work that's been done up to this point. So would the Minister be willing to meet with the association and consider options?

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, I'm always willing to meet with any groups. You know, like I said, I'll meet with Indigenous groups, I'll meet with any groups. I'll meet with Members. You know, and I hear the Member and, you know, and I fully understand where, you know, this like I said, these are some decisions that we had to make. But, again, I'll leave it at that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I will to go back to the Member of Yellowknife North.

Shauna Morgan

Yellowknife North

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm encouraged to hear that, and I think that we could that's a promising start and that we could still find a path forward. So I'll leave it there for today. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Is there any further questions? Seeing none, no further questions, please turn to page 203.

Health and Social Services, health and social services program, operational expenditures summary, 20242025 Main Estimates, $384,586,000.

Sorry, I didn't see your hand. I looked around. There was okay.

The Member from Yellowknife Centre, I just had a quick question for you, is we had Members speak out already and they had their allotted ten minutes. Are you going to need ten minutes? Okay, I'll give you the latitude. Keep it short and sweet.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a couple quick easy questions. The first one is fee for service doctors, and the Minister asked me questions on the last one and I couldn't answer because I ran out of time. But the only area I just and I'll respect the time and Members are all getting tired, including myself. I'd like to know how many fee for service doctors we have in this section. So in other words, how many in total.

And out of the locums that we hire, are they hired as fee for service and can information specific to their type of costing, if possible, be provided. And I suspect, assuming that goes easy, that will tie me off for information wise this time around on this page. Thank you. If it goes easy.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have one.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Yellowknife Centre.

So I'm not going to drag this on. Just to clarify, we only have that's not like two half times. We're talking one doctor only in the Northwest Territories working for fee for service. Okay. I'm seeing nods.

And our locums, are they working for fee for service, or are they I'm seeing nos. So I've answered my own question. That's all I need. Okay. Thank you. I have agreed to move on. Thank you.

All right, thank you. Okay, I'm going to continue on. Again, please turn to page 203.

Health and Social Services, health and social services programs, operations expenditures summary, 20242025 Main Estimates, $384,586,000. Does the committee agree?

Speaker: SOME HON. MEMBERS

Agreed.

Thank you. Moving on to the long term and continuing care services, beginning on page 207, with information items on page 210. Are there any questions? No further questions, I'm going to continue on.

Please turn to page 208. Health and Social Services, long term and continuing care services, operations expenditures summary, 20242025 Main Estimates, $72,657,000. Does the committee agree?

Speaker: SOME HON. MEMBERS

Agreed.

Thank you. Moving on to out of territory services beginning on page 211. Are there any questions? No further questions. Please turn to page sorry. My apologies, I want to go to the Member from Yellowknife North.

Shauna Morgan

Yellowknife North

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just to confirm, we're on out of territory services, right? Okay.

So the budget for residential care for out of territory services, so that would cover supportive living arrangements for adults in a residential or group home setting for extended periods of time in facilities outside the NWT. And so I understand that in many cases that the people that would require this kind of residential care might have very specialized needs or, like, particular conditions that, you know, can't be met with services or facilities inside the NWT. But I'm also hearing from the NWT Disabilities Council and other advocates that in some cases, we have adults with certain challenges that could actually be met if there were increased supports for them to be able to stay at home or assisted living or ways that they could remain at home and remain in the community and that it's actually costing the territory much more money by sending them out of the territory to live for extended periods of time. Sometimes they can't really come back and live.

Has the Minister considered or done analysis of the number of cases of adults being sent for residential care outside the territory and what how many might have benefitted from better services inside the territory that could be provided that would assist them to stay at home and stay in their communities? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

At this time, I want to excuse the witnesses and the sergeantatarms, could you escort them. And thank you for your time and have a good evening, everybody. Thank you.

Report of Committee of the Whole

Speaker: MR. SPEAKER

Thank you, Colleagues. Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.