Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister responsible for Health and Social Services. I talked earlier about the consolidated clinic here in Yellowknife and, once again, I think it’s a great facility and there are great programs that are being offered out of there. But as with new programs, there are some growing pains. I know the Minister has probably heard a lot of these concerns that are brought up by the public. I know that I’ve taken a couple to the Minister and they have been addressed.
What I’m interested in now is in order to ensure that this facility continues to be the excellent facility that we hope it is, we need to have some sort of mechanism that will allow individuals who are utilizing those services to get their comments and concerns straight to the authority, right to the individuals who are front line, who can start making some of those changes to improve the efficiency. I’m curious whether the Minister has directed the authority to put in some sort of mechanism where information can flow to the right people. Or is it more of an open process where they contact their MLAs and we take it to the Minister? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First of all, I’d like to thank the Member for the positive statements he made with regard to this important project. It is an important initiative for our health and social services system, because the Yellowknife primary clinic services not just Yellowknife residents but residents from surrounding communities.
I agree with the Member that the facility is going through, and has gone through, some growing pains, and I agree with him that we need to be able to give that feedback. What I’m going to suggest to the Member is, I’m going to ask the authority and the management there to have a suggestion box, suggestions on the website, and get all of the feedback that people have been giving us and giving the Members about some of the things we can do better there, and I will report back to the Member on what changes they could implement to improve that. Thank you.
I’d like to thank the Minister for that. One of the issues that has come to my attention, and I know it’s come to some of the other Members, has been the telephone system at the clinic itself. There appears to be a lot of frustration. Some people phone and they get busy signals or they get put on hold for extended periods of time. Now, I know that we have some staff issues and we’re trying to staff that place up, which might be part of the problem, but has anything been done to start addressing the amount of time that people are waiting on the telephones or have we put in more people to ensure that the calls are answered in a more timely manner? Thank you.
The steps are being taken and have been taken to address that issue. The phone system they installed at the clinic is quite sophisticated, but we have been running into some trouble. The authority has been working with the provider and the main person from the headquarters. They have been meeting. It’s a sophisticated system that’s able to evaluate and take all of the numbers of the calls being made, how long people are waiting for and how they can improve. As the Member knows, because we have met with the authority, they’re observing all of that and will be analyzing that and I expect to get some reports on that very quickly. I will get back to the Member and inform the public as to what steps are being taken to improve that. Thank you.
The Minister actually hit on something incredibly important there and I’m glad she’s going to provide the information back to me and my colleagues; that’s important. But more importantly it’s about getting the information to the public, because they’re the ones who are using this clinic and we need to make sure that whatever we do is clearly communicated and articulated to our residents, the ones who want to use it. So I look forward to that.
Another area of concern, and I’ve touched on it briefly, is just the number of staff that we have in that facility. I had one constituent come to me -- and I’ve shared the information with the Minister -- where they went to the diagnostic side and there was nobody there. There is a waiting room there, and they waited for what they felt, and what I feel, is an extended period of time before there was even somebody in there, which kind of is a little worrisome, but I know that there are some staffing issues. I’m wondering what kind of timeline is in place to ensure that we get that facility fully staffed so that there are people at the front counters when people come in to both the diagnostic and the clinical side. Thank you.
As we get further into operating this facility, the authority is, and will be, reviewing the staff makeup and the presence of staff at the front office. The way it’s designed, because of the physicality of the floor, we couldn’t have everybody in one place, so it just necessitated having two different stations. We have been able to train and staff additional personnel on the lab side. I have also talked to the management about using some of the equipment and TV screens and other things to advise and inform the public about how long they have to wait, why they are waiting, what’s expected to happen while they are waiting. The authority is constantly evaluating the operation to see how we can improve them and I will keep the Members advised as well as the public as we move forward.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. Final supplementary, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just two quick things in closing. I mentioned earlier that I had a constituent who mentioned some difficulties they had accessing the building, especially the interior doors. The individual was in a wheelchair and there was no electronic opener on the door, so it was very difficult. I believe that’s been rectified. If I can get the Minister to confirm that that has in fact been rectified.
The second part is that the Minister has mentioned that this facility is not just a Yellowknife facility, that it is a territorial facility. My question to the Minister is if they have ever considered renaming the authority. Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority doesn’t seem like the appropriate name if we’re providing territorial-wide services.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Two questions there. Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I agree with the Member that the automatic door situation was really unfortunate. As soon as that was made apparent to us, DPW and Department of Health and Social Services and YPCC worked immediately to rectify that.
To answer the naming of it, the authority did have public consultation and the board decided that they would like to stay with the Yellowknife name because that’s what even the communities outside of Yellowknife recognize the facility to be. Mr. Speaker, I... Oh. System off line. I will talk to the authority about a possible name change to reflect the operation, but that might be too soon, seeing as it just came into operation in June.
System off line. But the lights are on.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
