Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I have questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services. I appreciate the response to my written questions. It is actually related to alcohol and drug-related emergency hospital and health centre visits. There are a lot of things in there that were brought to my attention; however, he only responded in terms of giving me stats for the Stanton Territorial Health Authority. In the written question, I asked for information from the health centres in the communities.
I guess my first question is: How is the department working on getting information and reporting with the health centres in the small communities so that here, as a territorial government, we can make territorial decisions with all the information from the small communities and the health centres? How is he getting the reporting from these small communities to help us make the decisions in this House?
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. Currently, the system relies on a Community Health Management Information System. This is where all of the visits, whether they be mental health or other health visits, are recorded and then provided to the department and, actually, it’s manually entered at this time. This is one of the things that we are trying to address through the introduction of the electronic medical record. But at this time they are entered and, admittedly, we are quite a ways behind on entering all the data, but we are getting caught up in some of the regions.
In the written responses that I had received there was a section here that patients had left against medical advice. I was wondering what the protocol was for the department when a patient leaves against medical advice and ended up at the emergency ward. What protocol does the department take or gives direction to for these patients that leave the emergency rooms?
Patients that leave the health centre that are there voluntarily, regardless of what the problem may be, are not necessarily contravening the Health Act. However, there are patients that are there involuntarily and in that case the physician can fill out a form that will detain the patient for up to two weeks. During that two-week period, if the patient chooses to leave the hospital or the health centre on their own, then the physician can ask for a peace officer to return the patient. There’s also a provision within that system, in that form or that certificate, involuntary admission, to extend the two-week period.
The Minister was referring to the Mental Health Act. It’s involuntary patients that leave against medical advice. Under Section 9, subsections 6, 7 and 8, which is an order for psychiatric assessment, direction of order to peace officers, and the authority of order, have these sections under the Mental Health Act ever been practiced in the Northwest Territories where somebody who left the hospital was actually picked up by a peace officer and taken back to the emergency ward, and given the proper psychiatric assessment that they needed? That’s what I’m trying to get to, because I’m seeing the stats here and they are not very good stats to be seeing.
I don’t have the specific stats on how many patients may have been returned by a peace officer to the hospital, but there is a provision in there that if a person is there under the certificate of involuntary admission and they choose to leave the hospital, then the physician can have them returned by a peace officer, RCMP, whatever. But I don’t know how many times that has occurred over the past year or over the past history.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, I’m glad the Minister said that. It gives us an opportunity to start recording that type of data so we can know whether our government is doing a good job or not.
The main thing that I’m trying to do here is to do some education, some awareness within the department and in the health service sector in the emergency rooms. I want to ask the Minister, what is he going to be doing with this information that I’ve received and what he’s mentioned. How is this information going to get disseminated within the department, working with other groups like the Department of Justice, so that we can start making the changes and creating policies so that we can start making change for the people that need it?
The current system allows for the health authorities to request training, and the department works with the trainers and so on to train people on the Mental Health Act. But at the same time, the same statistics that we provided to the Member, there are many incidences across the territory that would require some special attention. I will take it back to the department to ensure that the staff is fully up to speed on the Mental Health Act right across our system. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
