Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In follow-up to the most recent set of questions here, in three years’ time a new hospital will go on stream in Hay River. The old hospital is being replaced. For different types of facilities there are all different kinds of building codes and building requirements. We know secure facilities have a certain code, hospital facilities have a certain building code they have to adhere to, and they cost different amounts of money. We will be using the Hay River hospital up until the day that we move everything over to the new hospital.
The day after, I find it interesting if this government would consider that hospital ready for the wrecking ball. We are desperate for infrastructure in this territory for different things. I’d like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services if he would begin a process now to begin to think about the Hay River hospital, which has just received the top accreditation you can receive for a hospital, would he begin some process of assessing that hospital to see if that facility would be suitable as a residential treatment or treatment centre of any kind in the future.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
When you replace a facility like a hospital, one of the main reasons for replacing a facility is not for what you see physically, it’s for how the building functions and how the building operates. The guts of the building are what get outdated and have to change. That in the H.H. Williams Hospital has gone beyond its date of good economic use. That is one factor. However, we would be prepared to take a look at using portions of that building if we thought that a treatment facility located in Hay River was the best value for our money.
The current Hay River hospital was built in two stages. There’s a much older wing and then there is a much newer part, which was very modern and cutting edge in its time when I think we cut the ribbon in 1975. I would like us to examine all possibilities for how we as a government could not retire that infrastructure but somehow re-profile it and put it and keep it in service for something. I would like to ask the Minister if he could confirm that – I know what he’s saying about the mechanical and all that – that the code for construction or utilization for a hospital would be different than it would be for a treatment centre.
Yes, the codes are much different. In a hospital we have to have different types of air exchanges. For example, I find out that if you have an operating room, you have to exchange air 20 times an hour. So you don’t need to have that type of air exchange in a treatment facility, of course. So, much different.
Would it be the Department of Health and Social Services that would, perhaps, review options for putting this facility into service in some capacity, or would it be the Department of Public Works and Services who acts as a central agency for the different client departments? Would it be the work of PWS to begin to do this assessment or would it be the work of Health and Social Services?
I understand that in order to continue to use a facility that may have reached the end of its life, we would have to coordinate that with a technical department like Public Works and Services so that if there are upgrades necessary, we need to determine the costs of continuing to use the facility regardless of what it would be used for. We would have to do some sort of technical evaluation to determine whether or not we would be better off just to build something new.
If I were the Minister of Health and Social Services and I were managing a department in the Northwest Territories that did not have a single youth treatment for drug and alcohol addiction bed available, I would be all over the Hay River hospital idea. I would like to ask the Minister if he would commit today to at least examine that possibility of re-profiling what will be the former Hay River hospital in three years’ time as a youth treatment centre.
I think the most youth we send out for treatment in one fiscal year would be five. Youth treatment is an interesting thing because most youth treatment isn’t voluntary, it would be youth treatment that’s forced upon the youth to go for treatment. Very few youth at their age would admit that they have an addiction issue or would need some treatment. They don’t recognize that until much later in life. Most youth that are treated are actually forced to go to treatment. We do that approximately, like I said, to a maximum of about five per year. We really have to determine the value of money for this type of situation.
There is some cost to treating youth in the South, we recognize that; a very high cost. We know that because we go for supps when we do the youth treatment money. I would say that we would look at something, possibly, but the likelihood of us having a full facility to treat that few people, we probably would not do it. We may set up a program that can go into another facility.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to get a few parents in the Northwest Territories who are struggling with teenagers that are involved with drugs and alcohol and I’d like them to weigh in on the subject. That we only have five youth in the Northwest Territories every year that volunteer to go for treatment? I know we can’t force them, but there is, if you just look at our statistics, we have got to recognize as a government that there is a need to make something available. Maybe if there was something available, maybe they would come. Maybe there would be interventions by families that say, look, we need to address these situations. If the government does not see the way clear, could we put out some kind of a call to a non-government organization that is involved in this type of work that might like to see the need in the Northwest Territories and participate in meeting that need by looking again at such a valuable piece of infrastructure, in my opinion?
I think part of our business is to try to… We are looking at having an actual youth treatment program. An example of something we looked at was having a summer program in, say, Nats’ejee K’eh. If that was the facility we chose to continue to fund, then maybe having one program per year where we would treat youth.
Youth – I think I was not clear – are usually court ordered or forced to go to treatment by their parents. There are very, very few that ever volunteer. That’s anywhere in the country. There are very few youth that actually volunteer to go to treatment.
