Thank you, Mr. Speaker. May 18, 2008, marks the four-year anniversary of the Tele-Care Health Line service. This 24-7 telephone service provides family health and support information to the residents of the NWT through the Tele-Care Health Line call centre.
The volume of calls through this service has steadily increased in four years, from 4,019 in 2004–2005 to 5,923 in 2007–2008. A total of 20,374 calls have been received since the service first began. As a result, we can statistically assume that 5,417 individuals have participated in self-care activities that may have reduced the pressure on our health centres and emergency departments.
The service name is undergoing change — from Tele-Care to Tele-Care Health Line to, eventually, Health Line. The service is also undergoing changes. A new smoking-cessation line will be the third enhancement to the service beginning this September, following the addition of sexually transmitted infection and poison control information added last year.
An addictions line has also been included in the resource database at the call centre. Callers can be transferred to a community counselling program. Residential school survivors can call the Tele-Care Health Line, and they will be referred to a wellness worker on the addictions line.
Mr. Speaker, I’d like to thank the people on the Tele-Care Health Line advisory committee for their hard work in contributing to the promotion and marketing of the Tele-Care Health Line service.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Minister Mr. Bob McLeod, Chair of Managing This Land Strategic Initiative Committee.
