Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I recognize my colleagues today for using their first languages and their second languages. I only know English, so I’ll be doing my statement in English. Thank you. It’s my first and only language.
I have a constituent. She’s confined to a wheelchair. She has MS. She has to attend at the Hay River Hospital from time to time for medical treatment. In the common areas of our hospital we do not have a washroom facility that is set up for a person in a wheelchair.
I have been talking about this for a long time, and about six months ago I made arrangements for my constituent to be picked up and brought to the Hay River Hospital to sit in the office of the CEO with the public administrator to explain firsthand what the challenge and what the problem was. They heard this and we were quite excited to think that we were going to get a toilet facility with gripper handles that go horizontal as opposed to on an angle, so that when someone in a wheelchair needs to use a washroom at a hospital, that they would have a facility that they could use. We were understanding that some of the money that was going to be turned back, which was the Hay River Health Authority surplus, was going to be held back so that this renovation could be done.
I cannot tell you how dismayed I am today to hear from our public administrator – and it is not his fault; I want to say that clearly it is not his fault – but they have received an updated cost for this bathroom renovation of $55,000, which is due to a CSA inspection control standard Z317. They have no money budgeted for this renovation.
This is an embarrassment. I am ashamed to have to go back and tell my constituent that this problem will not be rectified. If we should not have facilities for people with disabilities in a hospital, where should we have them? No one could go out and build a commercial building without having proper and adequate washroom facilities for people with disabilities, and yet our government owns an institution in Hay River, the second largest community in the Northwest Territories, where I have a constituent that cannot access a washroom in a public area in the hospital.
We as a government have lost our way when we have to spend $55,000 to do a bathroom renovation. I would like to get permission from the government to go and buy the gripper handle and to install it and put a raised toilet seat in a washroom in a hospital.
I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted
I guarantee that the concerns of my constituent could absolutely and completely be addressed for less than $5,000, including labour. How many plumbers and carpenters do we have working for Public Works and Services in Hay River? How many are on staff at the hospital themselves that could not reinforce the drywall and put a horizontal bar in a washroom so that a person in a wheelchair could use the washroom?
It is a sad day; $55,000 for a washroom renovation. I am embarrassed. I am disgusted. I can’t even go back and tell my constituent. I am offering today to pay to have this fixed. I’m going to have questions, I don’t know, for the Minister of Public Works or the Minister of Health. This is not acceptable. Thank you.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.
