Thank you, Madam Speaker. I have questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services. I want to know when the Sahtu long-term care facility will begin to see its construction.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Mahsi cho, Madam Speaker. The plan is for some of the preliminary work to be done now and we’re hoping that the long-term construction… I think the target date for the long-term construction is to begin construction in the summer of 2013 and conclude it in the summer of 2015.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. The Minister and I had a tour in the Sahtu and we stopped in Deline. We talked to the people in Deline. The people in Deline know that the old long-term care facility was shut down in 1994 and that it hasn’t been opened since. The people want to know, there are some units there that some of the older people wanted to see if the Minister could consider, with asking his colleagues, if some of those units could be opened so that they can bring some of the people back from outside the region so they can come back and stay there for the last days of their life on Earth. Has the Minister made any progress in seeing where this request that has been asked by the people of Deline to see if it’s being taken seriously, to ask if the Department of Health could open possibly maybe six units in Deline’s old long-term care facility?
The building itself, both buildings and the outbuildings that the long-term care or what was referred to as the senior citizens home in Deline does belong to the NWT Housing Corporation. Right now it’s being leased out to Health and Social Services and we are using the main part of the building. The community wishes that part of the building would be opened up and the administration of health and social services, I think their home care programs and counselling and so on that were in there, would be moved to one of the out buildings. At this time there needs to be an evaluation done by ourselves and NWT Housing Corporation to determine how we could feasibly move the individuals that are working in that building to the outbuildings, or another location, in order to turn that back into a senior citizens home.
The issue of the long-term care facility in the Sahtu has been long-standing. Like I said earlier my Member’s statement, I’m grateful for the 16th and I’d certainly appreciate the 17th Assembly and this government here to keep their eye on the ball or the prize to build a long-term care facility in the Sahtu region. This is the only region without a long-term care facility. I want to ask the Minister, since this is the first one we built and I think it’s the only one that’s going to be built in the Sahtu, what is the Minister doing to work with the people in the Sahtu to prepare for the long-term care facility in terms of construction, training, programming, staffing. What is the Minister doing with the Sahtu people?
This new 18-bed long-term care facility is intended to be a regional long-term care facility for the entire Sahtu. There is a plan to fill all the positions in the building with people from the Sahtu. I believe that there will be as many as 27 people in the building. It’s going to be a long-term facility with a new, modern health care attached to it. The plan is to have all the people right from the registered nurse to the aides that work in there to the cook to the cleaning staff, everything, that they would be trained. We’re going to be scheduling some training in there so that place is run by the people from the Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. Can the Minister briefly tell me if there are some plans in place with this government and the Sahtu through the Sahtu Health and Social Services, or some other government agency that the department is overseeing, that they from time to time could monitor the progression of the building of the long-term care facility, where they would be able to monitor and keep checks and balances as to the progression of this entire long-term care facility?
Yes, we can do that. We can work with the Sahtu Health and Social Services to ensure that they keep tabs on the project and that we communicate the progress to the people in the Sahtu. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.
