Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I would like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services what is your long-term plan for the elders in the Mackenzie Delta for long term-care. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We heard a lot about this when we travelled in the Mackenzie Delta. The fact that there is no long-term care facility, as we refer to long-term care facility where there is nursing care and all of that, in the Mackenzie Delta in the three communities that this Member represents. However, they did talk about reopening and re-profiling the Joe Greenland Centre from the type of care that was being provided and shut down to where the Housing Corporation will be renovating that facility and then allocating those for elders within the community of Aklavik and perhaps communities from the other two communities in the Mackenzie Delta. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I strongly believe that the care of the elders is with the Department of Health and Social Services. I believe that we are delegating that responsibility over to Housing. Does the department plan to take that portfolio back and look after elders in the Mackenzie Delta? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, the Department of Health and Social Services is trying to use the integrated service delivery model to try to address issues with seniors’ care right across the territory. We do recognize that the numbers indicate that we should be providing more home care services to allow seniors to live independently.
As far as the responsibility for individuals that can no longer safely care for themselves, the option is going to a long-term care facility in Inuvik. We can’t afford to build that type of long-term care facility in all of the communities, but there is one in Inuvik, although these units fill up almost immediately as they are built. That is our answer and to try to prevent people from going there is also our responsibility, and we can do that by providing home support workers, home care workers and so on for the citizens in the Mackenzie Delta. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, as the facility in Inuvik does not have adequate space, what is your backup plan? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are slowly expanding long-term care in the territory. Right now we are increasing long-term care in the Tlicho region by nine beds, or I think 10 beds, going from an eight-bed facility to an 18-bed facility. We’re expanding regionally again in the Sahtu by providing an 18-bed long-term care facility. Unfortunately, in the plans we don’t have an additional long-term care facility going into the Mackenzie Delta. We have one in Inuvik, as I indicated, but we don’t have a plan to build a long-term care facility in the Mackenzie Delta. So we’ll have to work with Health and Social Services to see what type of services we can have to try to keep people in their homes as long as possible. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just recently we added two facilities for elders in the Northwest Territories. I’d like to ask the Minister, can the Mackenzie Delta be next in line for an elders facility. Thank you.
The capital planning process is going to determine where the next capital projects will occur. It will be very difficult for me to indicate that that would be the next capital planning project that we would build. As far as long-term care and as far as health facilities go, we can seriously look at a long-term care facility over there, but how it competes against other capital projects is determined by the capital planning or infrastructure committees set up within the infrastructure we have here as a government. Thank you.
