Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I would like to talk about a situation that has come to my attention in my constituency office from numerous constituents. Mr. Speaker, it has to do with the delivery of specialist health services. In theory, it would be a great achievement to attract medical specialists to the Northwest Territories Stanton Territorial Hospital and to service people of the NWT in their home territory and avoiding things such as the high cost of travel, accommodation when they have to go to the city, separating families when they need medical attention.
Mr. Speaker, when a new discipline or specialist service is brought on stream here at Stanton, what is expected is that anyone who is a resident here who had previously been seeing a specialist in southern Canada would then automatically begin to see that specialist. In order to justify having that specialist, it is necessary to ensure they have a caseload that would warrant their attendance and residency here in the Northwest Territories.
Mr. Speaker, like I said, in theory this is a wonderful achievement and it is a great idea, but the complicating factor in this is that some people have been receiving medical treatment from a specialist in the south over a number of years. They may have a chronic illness that has required them to establish a doctor/patient relationship with a specialist who knows that patient, who knows their case well, and an argument can certainly be made for the merit of continuity of care and the comfort it would give that patient knowing that they can continue to see the doctor who knows them and who knows their case.
Mr. Speaker, I am not sure what the solution is to this problem, but it has arisen numerous times in the last month in my office and in Hay River. I am not sure, again, how we can address that, because, of course, we do want to have those specialist services available here. But when they are something new that is brought on stream, how do we deal with those people who already have a longstanding relationship with a physician in the south? Later today, Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask questions to the Minister of Health and Social Services on that and see if we can come up with a system that would be fair to everyone. Thank you.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
MEMBER’S STATEMENT ON
GNWT SUPPORT FOR
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday I listened to the Premier, and in his sessional statement he talked about the Northwest Territories and he made reference to the Assembly goals that we were going to try to achieve through this Assembly. He mentioned two of them: healthy, educated people and one of the other goals was an environment that will sustain the present and future generations of our people.
Mr. Speaker, I fully support these goals, but how do we get to them? Well, there is a means that we can achieve them. Mr. Speaker, by doing some research from the NWT Bureau of Statistics, it shows that in our communities in the Sahtu our traditional activities are heavily supported by our people in the manner that people live off the land, they hunt and fish, they trap and use country foods. Mr. Speaker, it’s very high in our communities in regard to the numbers that show up in the stats of people that go out on the land to practice the tradition to live their culture and to teach and to educate their children about the land. These values are very strongly supported, as these numbers indicate.
Also, Mr. Speaker, the number of young people in our region is very high. In the entire Sahtu region, Mr. Speaker, 45 percent of our population is under 25 years of age and, Mr. Speaker, you know that the Sahtu has only seasonal jobs up to six months at best and people with low... The economic wage salary scale is way down. There’s a high percentage of families with less than $30,000 of income coming in per year. So a lot of people rely on country foods, rely on the land. So I want to ask the Premier, when questions are asked, about what type of programs will the government do to support trappers and hunters and families to go out and live on the land, to support them due to the high cost of living we have in the Sahtu region. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.
