Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Health and Social Services. I want to follow up on my statement and talk a bit about the Territorial Respite Care Plan, which apparently is ready to go.
I would like to ask the Minister, first of all, if he would give me, and give the House and the public, an update on the Territorial Respite Care Plan, where it is at. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The full expansion of the Territorial Respite Program outside of Yellowknife and into the communities that don’t have any respite services is going to be between $2 million and $3 million. Our Department of Health and Social Services is working with the Department of Finance to assess competing financial pressures and so on in order to look at the expansion, but we do have some services operational and running in small communities outside of Yellowknife too. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister. I know that there are some respite care programs outside of Yellowknife. There are three communities which have respite care for some of their residents there, but as I mentioned in my statement, there is an overwhelming need for respite care in the other 29 communities that aren’t yet served by any kind of respite care. I would like to know from the Minister when is the department going to recognize… I think they recognize that there is a need, but when are they going to recognize it as an overwhelming need? When are they going to start providing services in our other 29 communities? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, the department recognizes that there is a need already. We have respite programs in Yellowknife, Detah, Fort Good Hope, Colville Lake, Fort McPherson, Simpson, Inuvik, Aklavik, Behchoko, Fort Smith and Hay River. Those are the communities, and for other communities which I have not mentioned, respite services can be made available through home care. Each of the communities that have home care, we can arrange for respite services if the need was there and we work with the authorities to provide that need through home care. Thank you.
I thank the Minister. I don’t think I heard of this opportunity for families to access respite care through home care.
Can the Minister provide a bit better explanation to me and to people listening? What would a family get by applying through home care? What kind of service is provided through home care for respite? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, it would be a standard respite service for individuals that need respite from caring for individuals that need constant care, where the request would go back through the authorities, whether it would be local or regional through the Health and Social Services Authority and asking the home care to do respite care for individuals in a similar line of what is being offered in respite care programs in Yellowknife and other communities where respite care is being offered. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That sounds like a fairly bureaucratic process and rather long and involved to simply get a family some assistance to deal with the stress that they are under from day to day.
Is this a dedicated person who is providing respite through home care? If not, when are we going to get dedicated personnel in our communities to assist families with the respite care they need? Thank you.
No, it is not a dedicated individual in those communities where we don’t offer the program, but rather, we would work with home care workers that are in the communities to provide that service based on requests and based on demand. When we will expand the program would be once we are able to make a business case back through the business planning process to expand the Respite Program. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
