Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in my Member’s statement I talked about a lack of response to a constituent’s concern. At issue for my constituent was the very long time that he would have had to wait to see a specialist doctor. In the end he never did see a specialist; his injury healed itself, fortunately. But that does not address the problem of long wait times that NWT residents are faced with. The original reason for his e-mail was the problem of a long wait time, and that was in October of 2008. So my question is to the Minister of Health and Social Services. I understand that we have different specialists within the NWT, and different specialties, of course, will have more people attending to them than others, but I’d like to know from the Minister how long a person should have to wait to see a specialist doctor. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have a lot of respect for the Member, but that was quite a scathing statement talking about how unresponsive I am, which makes me wonder what kind of a Member is she to wait for 18 months before she brings up an issue about her constituent.
Mr. Speaker, we work on the same floor; we work in the same building; my BlackBerry is on 24 hours a day. She knows that a simple phone call or an e-mail could have given her an update. Mr. Speaker, at the same time, her scandalous headline, she did answer her own question in that…
I want to answer the question about being responsive to constituents. We take this job very seriously. We have 2,500 people working in the department who work hard to respond, and the Member did state that this person was contacted by a staff. When they contact my office they don’t always get a direct answer from me. We respond as a system.
Mr. Speaker, wait times, without knowing the details, I can’t answer the question. I’ll take the question as notice and get the details and get back to the Member. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.
