Lesa Semmler

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in April, we were notified by Alberta Health Services that effective May 1st that they would no longer be providing virtual care and allowing for the hematology oncology patients here in Yellowknife to do their blood work. Under the standard of practice, they felt that their patients weren't being able to be serviced virtually, and so they made the decision to have all of the patients have to go to Alberta and be serviced through their oncology department. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yeah, Mr. Speaker, you know, with all of the work that I've been hearing from the Member that the Sahtu is doing to try to provide wellness and the workshops that they're doing and the collaborating that they're doing, I really commend them for that because, you know, we hear so many times that our leadership are not supporting our youth and our residents and, you know, here we are, we're trying to work together, and they're working together. So I really appreciate that. And, you know, I know that we have a bilateral coming up with SSI and, you know, I can if there's...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And this is the question that I keep asking the department, what is the timeline. This is what I heard from your constituent, from my constituents, is I can't sustain doing this. We cannot and, you know, put aside the medical travel, it's the like, the things that you said, the things that you know, the stress of having to travel, you know, the some people are still working and trying to do this, so there is recruitment, so, you know, the Alberta Health will have to recruit an oncologist and then we will have to recruit an oncology nurse here in the territory to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want to, you know, say to the Member I as soon as I found this out, this was a priority, this was something that I brought made sure that I had all the information as to what happened and to direct the department to come up with what the resolution is, and I hear the Member. I don't believe that it's you know, and I've heard from constituents and other constituents of other Members that, you know, this is not a sustainable for them already having to go through cancer treatment and going through this process, adding on having to travel...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the community wellness and addiction recovery fund is an area where that can be targeted for youth. Also, we do have the community suicide prevention fund, and that can also be targeted to youths or adults in any communities. And those are currently taking proposals for programs. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think what it is is there are approximately there is about 50 residents that are impacted and 11 residents receiving active cancer care. All of their plan of cares are different and so what the ask is that because of the I mean, and we've all heard it in this House the process of transferring blood work and records down to Alberta Health Services, well, their system doesn't speak to our system. That way the oncologists don't have the information because when we send it down to them, it's not being entered into their system on a timely manner. So what...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, before we even had electronic medical records, our patients traveled so, like I say again, if this is a specific instance because if it is and if there are many people that are going to appointments, they are not complaining through my office so maybe they're going through the Office of Client Experience and that's where I would tell these clients to also go. I would encourage any MLAs to encourage their constituents to go through the Office of Client Experience. This way we can document what the issues are and then we can rectify them if this is a bigger...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, when patients are traveling down to Alberta, depending, I mean, wherever they are coming from, there's different systems that we use and yes, I've mentioned it many times in this House, that the systems that we use don't talk with Alberta systems and that is why our it is in the business plan, and that we are updating our EMR, our electronic medical records, in the health system. One of those things is to, hopefully, to make sure that it does have the opportunity to connect with Alberta. What they do currently, there are many different ways that they do...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this funding is for two years, and then we will  as part of the business plan, we'll continue to move forward into the 20262027 business planning cycle for  you know, for future funds. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as aftercare and transitional housing is not currently being offered in the Northwest Territories right now and it hasn't been offered in Yellowknife, we don't exactly have  we don't know how many until we start to be able to track. We do know how many people go out for treatment. We do know that not all those people going out for treatment that are returning back need somewhere to live, but there are those that may. So this is  will  we don't have those numbers at this time. Thank you.