Lesa Semmler

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, yes, Mr. Speaker, I am committed to ensuring that health and social services space are safe, equitable, for all residents accessing the services and that everyone should be able to feel safe when they're coming into any one of our health services throughout the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to acknowledge the medical misgendering of this resident's medical file, and I would like to extend my sincere apology. I know my colleague has raised that they were frustrated, they were hurt, the hardship that it put on them having to deal with this for so many years. The details of why and how this didn't get done on a -- you know, when they tried to deal with it in person, I don't have those details. But what I can say is that we will make sure that this doesn't happen to any Northwest Territories' resident again. Thank you, Mr...

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document: 2023-2024 Annual Report Director of Child and Family Services. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this has come up many times in the House, and NTHSSA's policy was put in place to protect the health and safety of all staff. Under the Northwest Territories Safety Act, the employer is required to take all responsible measures to ensure the health and safety of their employees. And nurses in the health centre may do home care and home care assessments during the day that are scheduled, but they are not first responders, Mr. Speaker. They're not the ones that run out to the emergencies. They are trained to do services within their health centre with the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, home care provides -- in all of our communities, we have home support workers and they provide bathing and making meals, nursing services for wound care and health checks, help with organization, and taking medication. In some communities, they provide palliative care for those who are dying and want to be close to home and family members. They loan out equipment, such as bathroom equipment and walkers. They do provide respite care to help out in the home so caregivers can get a break. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am unaware of how many children are on the waitlist in the Tlicho region. But what I can do is I can commit to getting those numbers. I also would like to highlight that, you know, the waitlist, yes -- however there is a waitlist, our speech and language pathologists that we do have are seeing -- and what they're doing is they're triaging so they're seeing youth under 5 and then youth between 16 -- 6 and 17 who have severe needs, so safety issues -- so speech-language is not just for speech but it's also for swallowing, so if there -- we're utilizing the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don't have the actual numbers of how many speech-language pathologists that we have. But what I do know is that many of those positions that we do have across the Northwest Territories are vacant. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, diversity and inclusion training is available to all health and social services system staff, including specific workshops on the diversity, inclusion in the workplace training, 2SLGBTQQIA+ 101 inclusive workplace awareness training, mitigating unconscious bias training. They also have PDI that they can use for other training. There is other self-learning training if health and social services staff wish to take on, but these are the training that we do have through diversity inclusion. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, I don't have the level of that detail here as per each recommendation. You know, that is going to take some time to compile any of that data. And so I will take the question on notice. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the process is going to continue the way it is. I hear the Member. I know constituents when things are changing and when they're not able to access something immediately that there might be -- but we have heard lots of other positives as well. And so not very many reach out to their MLAs when things are positive. So, you know, so that's the issue here. And so we are monitoring it. We are increasing -- the numbers have been increasing in Yellowknife for access. So like I said, there are 200 more in the last month than there is normally. Thank you, Mr...