Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Minister of Health and Social Services. It’s with regard to my Member’s statement. The question is: why is there such a disparity with regard to programs and services in the larger centres and the smaller communities?
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Member’s passion and commitment to enhance everything that is or is not in small communities, but that is quite a general statement. Under the integrated service delivery model that we follow in the Territories, all residents are entitled to have access to Health and Social Services programs. All the authorities do their best every day to make those programs accessible to everyone in the Territories.
Mr. Speaker, one of the priorities of this government is to have safe and vibrant communities. I think one of the fundamental bases of any community is to have health care, a good education system, and good programs and services. I think it’s important that we see the disparity between our small communities and larger communities because of the social conditions that they’re in. Not having access to health care is definitely one of them.
I’d like to ask the Minister: exactly why is it that this disparity exists, when most communities don’t have to worry about access to health care? They take it for granted.
Mr. Speaker, the Member is well aware that we do have different categories of services that are available in communities, but every community in the Territories has access to programs as they need them. I think the community of Fort McPherson, for example, is quite fortunate in having a stable nurseincharge and long-term staff who work there. The same is the case for Aklavik. For the community of Tsiigehtchic, while they may not have a number of health care professionals and social service professionals residing in the community, they do have access to care in the Inuvik facility by medical travel or whatever services they may require. It’s a constant challenge for us, but I do believe that we have a program that we can be proud of and that we need to continue to work from.
I don’t think we should be proud of a system where you don’t have front-line workers in communities — from nurses to basically having the basic services.
I’d like to ask the Minister: exactly why is it we don’t even have nurses in our community?
Communities of different sizes have different PYs allocated, whether it’s for nursing or any other services. We do have a constant challenge of vacancy rates and being able to recruit and retain, so we do work constantly on making sure that every community, no matter the size, has the level of service that people require.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. Final supplementary, Mr. Krutko.
Mr. Speaker, I’d like to ask the Minister if she can verify or get information in regard to the health of communities based on the lack of programs and services. What’s the mental, emotional and physical health of those people in those communities, compared to other communities that have those services?
Mr. Speaker, I just reviewed and approved a document that’s been produced by the Department of Health that gives a very good indication as to why the residents of the Territories visit health centres and access Health and Social Services care. I expect to have that published and tabled in the House. I think that would give us a good starting point to have further discussion on that. I agree with the Member that we need to continue to work on this challenge. I look forward to doing more work with the Member. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.
