Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I have a question for the Minister of Health as to home care. Will the Minister, as an interim solution until we re-establish the long-term care facility in the Mackenzie Delta district, increase the amount of home care workers in the communities of Aklavik, Fort McPherson and Tsiigehtchic? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Recently, Health and Social Services closed the Joe Greenland building down and then retained over $400,000 of the funding that’s used to operate the facility there in home care. The intention now is to hire two more additional home care workers for Aklavik and we are now also looking at Fort McPherson, 132 people over the age of 60 in Fort McPherson and some of which need home care and there’s only one home care worker in Fort McPherson. So the Beaufort-Delta Health and Social Services Authority is looking at that situation right now to determine the need, the exact needs of what home care need there is for home care workers.
In Tsiigehtchic we have 20 people right now over the age of 60-some, a few of which require minor home care, but we have one home care worker and the plan in Tsiigehtchic is to stay with the one home care worker at this time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
It was very unclear what the plans were for Fort McPherson and I would just like a little more follow-up on that. Are there plans to increase the amount of workers there? Thank you.
As I indicated, in McPherson we have a lot of people over the age of 60, many of which do require home care. There are 132 people in the community that require home care, so Beaufort-Delta Health and Social Services Authority are looking at ways now how to enhance that service, recognizing they only have one home care worker who can’t possibly service all those people. So we have asked them to look at it and they are looking at it.
In Tsiigehtchic at this time – and we can take another look at it, I’m not saying we won’t look at it – we have 20 people over the age of 60, and there is some need for some minor home care and they have one home care worker. But if the Member feels there is a need for more than one home care worker in Tsiigehtchic, despite the low numbers, I’m prepared to discuss that with the Member. Thank you.
At this time I have no further questions. Thank you, Mr. Minister.
Thank you. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
