Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is also for the Minister of Health and Social Services. Coming from Inuvik, over the past couple of years I’ve seen a backlog of surgeries, specifically joint replacement surgeries and the backlog has led to inactivity, sedentary lifestyles, which lead to people becoming overweight and can lead to obesity, which also leads to chronic conditions. With our ever growing senior populations, I’d like to ask the Minister of Health what is the reason for this backlog, specifically joint replacement surgeries.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The honourable Minister of Health, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The reason that the Stanton Territorial Health Authority is not actively doing elective joint replacement surgeries at this time is due to ongoing renovations to the ventilation system. They have to achieve a super clean operating room in order to do joint replacements because there is high possibility of infection with that type of surgery.
With the new standard put in place, that’s probably been about the amount of time since the backlog started. It has taken awhile and I was just wondering what the plan in place was to address the backlog and what exactly is the plan that the Department of Health has come up with to address the backlog of these elective surgeries.
The Member is right; there has been a backlog as a result of not doing the elective joint replacement surgery. What we are doing is we are approaching Edmonton, the ones that are emergency situations. Some of the emergency situations are maybe what the Member is describing are possibilities. Although Edmonton, too, also has some on the waiting list. So that is our backup plan, but realistically our objective is to get the operating room back operational. Thank you.
I respect the answer that the department is doing as much as it can. Is there an expected timeline that these surgeries can be brought back on schedule so that the people in the communities that have been waiting of the last couple of years have confidence in this government that they are moving forward and have that interest in getting them back on their feet and healthy and becoming society again.
The project to turn the operating room into a super clean operating room is out to tender now. Our objective is to have the operating room operational, I guess, on April of 2012, this coming year. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. April of 2012 we can expect people of the communities of the Northwest Territories, the ones that have been waiting for the last few years, to start moving through the process and getting their surgeries taken care of by this 17th Legislative Assembly and the government. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. More of a comment. Moving on. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
