Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The other day I made a Member’s statement on our seniors and prevention and promotion. When this side of the House asks for dollars to deal with chronic management, we’re not asking for long-term facilities, we’re not asking for beds, we’re not asking for workers to fill those long-term facilities, we’re asking for prevention and promotion program. Programs that are going to keep our elders living an independent lifestyle, promote our language, our culture, and keep those…(inaudible)…alive.
The other day we had the Minister of Human Resources mention that he moved some dollars into Education, Culture and Employment for training and development of our government staff. I’d like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services today if he’d be willing to look at the same option and take some of the dollars in his budget and possibly move it into another department, possibly Municipal and Community Affairs, so that they can start supporting some of these great programs that do great work for our senior citizens, such as the Elders in Motion program, Nordic Walking Program, through the NWT Recreation and Parks Association. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Any of the budget moves from Health and Social Services or other departments are first vetted through the appropriate committees. We do have a lot of intergovernmental work that goes on right here in this area. Currently, we are trying to work with trying a program that’s run federally, called Aging in Place. That is part of our continuing support for seniors, and that’s just trying to do some health programs and other programs that are needed to keep the people in their homes and prevent them from going into long-term care. Thank you.
Over the years, some of these non-government organizations have been operating out of the same budget and they stretch the dollars as far as they can go. I’m asking the Minister, is he willing to commit, should it come from committee, to allocate some of those dollars to these NGOs so they can provide the programs. Like I said, obviously, when we talk chronic disease management, the department thinks of long-term care facilities. We want prevention and promotion programs, and we have a lot of great organizations out there that are running these programs. Is the Minister willing to commit those dollars, should he get a recommendation from committee? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The department has money earmarked into prevention. I could do a presentation, have the department do a presentation to committee in the area that the committee may want to look at moving.
We have met with the NWT Parks and Recreation Association, as an example, and had good discussions, and we support a lot of their initiatives. However, at this point, we have been concentrating on the fact that 40 percent of all our hospitalizations are due to chronic disease, and we’re trying to look at the prevention of the five main diseases that are causing 40 percent of our hospital admissions. So we’re working as a department, but if there is an NGO that would be supportive and we could gain a lot of value from that, we would be pleased to work with them as well. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, there’s a reason why our hospital admissions are at 40 percent and there’s a way we can stop that by investment into prevention and promotion programs now. We talked about investment this whole last two weeks, and the sooner we do it, the sooner we can drop those numbers down. We don’t want it to rise at all.
In our hospitals we also have some elder day programs. I’m looking at all avenues to protect our senior citizens. Would the Minister look at these elders day programs, do an assessment and look at how we can provide more services, whether financially or in a staffing situation, so that we can provide more programs, active, independent, traditional, cultural programs for these elders who are able to do these day programs in the hospitals? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Part of our overall objective is to create more of the elder day programs. I and the deputy minister have been to Inuvik to look at the Elder Day Program that’s run out of the Beaufort-Delta hospital. We consider it to be very successful. There have been requests from some of the communities up there, and other communities, as well, to run a day program like that so that people who are preventing the elders from moving into long-term care and taking care of them at home, can go to work, and so on, while their elders are in a safe, secure day program. That’s something that we see as a great benefits to government overall.
We are currently looking at that day program and other day programs in the hope of expanding the program and are working in that direction, to expand the program in other communities. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just one last quick question and it comes back to the views of our Beaufort-Delta Leadership Council, and that’s intergovernmental work and how we can work together to be more efficient in the service delivery of our programs and our dollars.
Is the Minister willing to work with the Department of Justice, or even the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, to see how we can work in getting our elders into those departments to promote culture, to promote tradition, to promote values and teachings of on-the-land programs, language in the schools? Is he willing to do that and, if so, what’s the timeline of getting these programs started? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, in my role as Minister responsible for Seniors, I would be very pleased to have a discussion with the Minister of Education and the Minister of Justice to see if we can increase the role or add some more responsibility for seniors to go into the schools or into any of the other facilities where there are our people, and see if the elders can assist them and assist the students in the schools, with the culture and whatnot. We’d be pleased to do that. We think that would be important and something that I think has been tried, and I think it’s been proven that it’s a positive thing. I would be pleased to work with the two Ministers to be able to do that. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
