Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to make reference to the state of the health and social services system made by the Minister of Health earlier today. There were some strong words put in there that I’d like to make reference to. One was we can make real changes in the health and social services system. The second one was focusing on wellness and prevention at the community level will lead to improved health status over the long term. Thirdly, that the Minister is committed to working with all Northerners to improve the operation of the health and social services system in the NWT.
That’s great news and it’s something that has been sought after for a long time and it will make some great changes in the years to come. We do represent people of the NWT, but we also represent the staff working in our departments within our government system. My first question for the Minister of Health: Has the staff at the Department of Health been briefed or given an update, given a heads-up on the possible increase of prevention dollars for the next fiscal year should we increase that funding for the 2012-13 year? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ve had discussions with the department at the deputy minister level, and I’ve talked to the CEOs of the health authorities in one short lunch meeting and have advised them that this is the direction that I’m hoping to take the department more into prevention. Thank you.
In discussions during our strategic planning there were references made to increasing the prevention budget to 1.5, possibly 2 percent in the prevention budget. Currently, we’re under 1 percent within the GNWT health and social services system. Is the department ready for that increase of funding dollars to be allocated to the communities across the Northwest Territories? There is a possibility that there might be one or two job positions that might need to be created with that increased funding. Has the Department of Health and Social Services looked into possible increased human resources for that? Thank you.
The department is looking at essentially a repackaging of what’s happening in the communities. We would see our budgets… You know we cannot increase the budget by ourselves. I mean, it takes the whole House to do that, but we can start to move the funding around internally, and what we’re thinking about doing at this time is repackaging the money that’s going into prevention that’s kind of scattered all over the department, repackage, focus in on community delivery by helping assist the community organizations to deliver the prevention programs. Thank you.
I know the current policy within the Health Promotion Fund that is regulated through the Department of Health and Social Services, one of the policies is anybody who receives funding for a project cannot get funding for any subsequent years for the same project even though the project may have made significant differences in the lives of Northerners throughout the Northwest Territories. Will the Minister commit to revising that policy, re-evaluating it and making the necessary changes so that the projects that we do have across the Northwest Territories that make those positive changes can continue to get funding for subsequent years?
This will be part of the repackaging of the way we are doing business. Communities that have success in programs and then have the program cut off after one year is not something that we want to continue. If communities have success with good programs in the schools or in the communities that are helping with prevention and are doing good upstream work for the Department of Health and for the people in the North, we are going to continue to fund those. Thank you.
