Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement, I quoted some pretty astronomical numbers in regard to the alcohol abuse-related deaths, injuries, accidents and suicides. On that pendulum swing right over the next, people who want to sober up and they use Nats’ejee K’eh, can the Minister inform me that at Nats’ejee K’eh, with a budget of $2 million and an occupancy rate of 46 percent, if Nats’ejee K’eh is working with the people of the Northwest Territories?
I also understand that the Minister is seeking information from the communities and I support the Minister on the community addiction forum as to get some home-grown solutions. Is Nats’ejee K’eh working for our government?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We recognize that Nats’ejee K’eh is not operating at full capacity. There is no question about that. Also, the people do successfully complete Nats’ejee K’eh. We don’t have an instrument that’s going to determine whether or not the Nats’ejee K’eh graduates were fully successful in achieving their battle against addictions, because at which point do we measure success? Is it one year of sobriety? Five years? Or is it a lifetime of sobriety after that? We are trying to get a feel from the communities and the people that have gone through Nats’ejee K’eh, through the community counselling, and then making a determination whether or not that is successful. But we do know that it is operating well under capacity. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, the Government of the Northwest Territories, through the Liquor Commission, made about $46 million last year, 2011-12. That’s the money they made. They contribute about 3 percent of that to promotion of healthy style living and responsible drinking. Nats’ejee K’eh runs on a $2 million budget. The capacity rate is about 45 percent. That runs roughly about $14,800 per client to take a 28-day treatment program.
Has the Minister given some stern direction to the Department of Health and Social Services, saying that Nats’ejee K’eh needs to change its program so that people in my region and other regions can come down there that would make it successful, and that would fill that centre and not be at 45 percent?
Mr. Speaker, as per our earlier discussions in the House, I have gone to see the board, Nats’ejee K’eh. I’ve met with the board at Nats’ejee K’eh. The board and the executive at Nats’ejee K’eh are sending a proposal into our department to look at different ways that they think they can deliver the addictions program at Nats’ejee K’eh to have greater success and also open up the options.
Currently, they have only men’s programs and women’s programs only. They don’t have youth treatment and so on. They were going to propose the various types of treatment, perhaps even family treatment, youth treatment, and male and female treatment, and come back to the department. I have not seen that proposal as of yet. However, they indicated to me, when I met with them, that they are going to send me that proposal. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, it has been reported that 85 percent of reported crimes in the Northwest Territories are alcohol and drug related. Ninety percent of inmates of Northwest Territories correction facilities have addiction issues.
With the usage of Nats’ejee K’eh and looking at the programs, is the Minister looking at a culturally relevant program? I believe that these numbers have to reflect a lot of the smaller communities, and a lot of the inmates in our centres are Aboriginal people. Is the Minister seriously looking at a drug and alcohol treatment program, not a mental health and wellness program?
Mr. Speaker, that seemed to be the problem, that they had moved away from purely alcohol counselling to more of counsellors that have degrees in mental health and that they looked at a lot of this as mental health issues. It appears as though the communities that want to use Nats’ejee K’eh would like to see that become more of an alcohol counselling type of facility as opposed to a lot of the mental health counselling requirements that are now associated at Nats’ejee K’eh. That’s the exact review that we had asked the board to come back with, an alcohol type counselling versus something that had a lot of mental health type of counselling such as only counsellors with their degrees in mental health who we doing the counselling there. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the Sahtu we have a high population of youth, I think about 79 percent, that are 15 years and over. Can the Minister tell me where the youth go for drug and alcohol treatment programs in the Northwest Territories?
We are looking to try to develop something at Nats’ejee K’eh. As I indicated, perhaps some treatment programs that would be built in in the summertime for youth.
Right now all of our youth that end up in treatment end up in treatment in southern placements. I think that the numbers of youth going to treatment, that type of treatment where they are placed in a southern treatment facility is very low. I think I at one time used the number five youth had gone to treatment over a two-year period from the Northwest Territories. So it’s difficult to build a program around that type of number, but we figure that if we can adapt something that’s in the North and targeted to youth from the North that there may be some uptake at facilities such as Nats’ejee K’eh. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
