Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I’d like to follow up on the topic raised by my colleague for Hay River North. It is a very important and very pressing issue at this time.
The good news is we’re all living longer. The bad news is this government has to find the capital to deal with providing long-term and extended stay care beds for our aging population.
This is a fact, that there are 10 long-term care beds in the existing Hay River hospital. Another fact is that the new health centre does not anticipate having any long-term care beds. So there is a timeline that’s fast coming upon us. The new hospital will be up and operational, and you know, in capital planning, years go by very, very quickly. We were on the waiting list for many years to get the new health centre we’re getting now and we can’t get back in the line. I don’t know if we can get back in the line fast enough to get a facility for these long-term care beds. So I would like to suggest an option, and I’m sure there are numerous options, but this is an option I would like to suggest to the Minister of Health and Social Services and the Minister of Public Works.
Right now the wing of the Hay River hospital that contains the 10 long-term care beds is operating. There will be the acute care wing, which will become open when the new health centre is built and operational.
I would like to suggest that a lot of our infrastructure we have is functional one day and not necessarily ready for the wrecking ball. I would like to see this government undertake a technical review starting soon, if they agree, to look at the use of the existing Hay River hospital as a full-sized or converting it fully to an extended care facility. I don’t know if it’s viable, I do know that the requirements for air handling and different codes are more strenuous for an actual hospital versus an extended care or long-term care facility. I am not, obviously, as a layperson, familiar with what all of those codes and what all of those things are, but there people who are, and I think that this building is worth taking a look at.
I think that it would require a technical review, a review of the ongoing operations and maintenance that would be involved in keeping this going, because the number of people that are going to be requiring those services in Hay River is going to be growing greatly over the next few years. We can’t wait. We need to know what the game plan is going to be going forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
