Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I talked in my Member’s statement about some of the support that’s needed in someone’s life when they want to put away alcohol or any type of addiction. Coming from a small community, in communities the people are listening to me now, today, at this very minute. They have enough motivation and courage to say I want to do something with alcohol, put it away or do something with addictions, drugs or whatever type of addictions they have.
Are there any types of programs right now, from listening to the Minister’s Forum, where they can take their family who say we want to go up to their cabin and stay there for a bit to deal with those issues?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister of Health, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. From October 23rd to 25th last week, we had gathered 50 people, 60 people in Fort Simpson to look at the development of an on-the-land youth treatment program. We need to be able to get that information and we’ve hired an individual specifically to develop that program. We need to look at what the youth had to say, how they see the program developing.
Now, I have to say that when we were travelling in the Sahtu, the people over there certainly want to see not only the youth go out on the land but the elders and the youth together to go out on the land for treatment. I’ve seen that in my own riding as well. So we kind of have a general idea of what on-the-land treatment with youth and on-the-land treatment is going to look like. So, certainly, we could end up with that type of treatment.
Thank you. It’s said that we need to think like our ancestors had been thinking. They knew the culture and the customs, Mr. Speaker. The culture taught them how to live in harmony with each other, so the people are saying we need to think like this again and that we must rely on a power greater than ourselves and that they don’t need alcohol in their lives.
So I say this: When will the Minister present a concrete on-the-land program for people in the small communities so they can take advantage of this service and this program?
Thank you. I think we have to really look at the philosophy of on-the-land treatment. We’re asking Aboriginal governments to provide us with proposals on what they see as something that will work for on-the-land treatment for the people, whether they be elders, the youth or families. This is not going to be a program where the government is going to come in with a program and then determine how the program will be set up. On-the-land treatment is something that would be community driven. We’ve received proposals from counsellors in the Sahtu even, and they’re very good, but what we’re trying to do is get the Aboriginal government to present that, whether it be the same thing or not. That’s how we wish to address those issues.
Certainly, the Sahtu people have been asking for on-the-land treatment programs ever since I became the MLA 10 years ago. With the closure of the Nats'ejee K'eh program, now the focus is coming back to the on-the-land treatment programs. I would ask the Minister to look at the programs. It may not fit within the prescribed policy or requirement, and this is coming from an Aboriginal community, government, that this is how they see it.
I would ask the Minister if he would dust off the proposals from the Sahtu to say yes, this could work for Colville Lake, Tulita or Deline. This can work in Fort Good Hope or Norman Wells. Would the Minister be willing to do that, to say yes, we can work on something like this? It’s been done already.
I can say that on-the-land treatment program is going to be very specific. It’s going to very specific to that community. I doubt if one program is going to even fit into two communities. Just about every individual community would have their own on-the-land program. There is going to be slight differences in every one of them. That’s why we’re really relying on Aboriginal people in the communities that said to us when we travelled and when the forum travelled, we want on-the-land treatment, so we’re asking them to come to us, bring us a proposal on what it is that they see on the land, and we will go out and try to find the funding to do that.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It seems that we have a disconnect. The Minister is asking the Aboriginal governments, the communities, to give us the proposal for on the land. The communities are saying this is what we believe is an on-the-land program and it seems that we’re not connecting as we need to sit down together and talk about this. We do have the proposals, I’ve seen them myself and I actually passed them on to the Minister.
Would the Minister then say, okay, Fort Good Hope, Tulita, Deline, Colville Lake even, we think we have a program. Let’s work on it together. I’m asking when can the Minister then say the Sahtu or any other regions, you can start having your on-the-land programs in your region.
When we discontinued funding to Nats'ejee K'eh, we had indicated to the individual governments, Aboriginal governments that approached us and asked us what we were going to do, we said at this point we had discontinued the funding and now we are working on developing something that’s going to work community by community, and we have promised them that sometime after the end of this fiscal year we would have things in place that would allow individual communities to access funding to run on-the-land programs.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
QUESTION 403-17(4):
HOME CARE HEALTH SERVICES
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m going to give the Minister a bit of a break on addictions. Earlier this month our Minister of Health and Social Services held a joint meeting with our federal Minister of State for Seniors, the Honourable Alice Wong, here in Yellowknife. The theme that came out of this meeting is how we can help our seniors and the challenges they face. I, like many, were interested in what exactly this territory will embark on to support our growing influx of seniors. My question today will be for the Minister of Health and Social Services.
Canada, in general, is way behind on home care help, as we have been informed by national patient advocates. Other provinces have taken steps to recognize this underfunded part of our health care system.
Can the Minister shed some light on what are his department’s plans to address our home care shortfall?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We will be coming forward with enhanced home care in the next budget session. We have been working on developing enhanced home care. We’re working with the federal government. The federal government is providing us some funding directly for home care as well. It’s part of the overall continuum of care for seniors in the Northwest Territories. We do have a strategy to develop care for seniors and the idea is to maintain people in their own homes as long as possible.
I’m encouraged and looking forward to the strategy and the budget here coming up for seniors. For the record, I just want to let you know, my personal experience with home care workers has been excellent, professional and totally respectful.
Seniors’ safety is a paramount factor for life longevity. What is the Minister planning to do to address the growing safety needs of our seniors?
Senior safety, for me, is something that is sort of like an emerging issue. That may sound like an unusual response, but when you watch things at a national level, you’re starting to see the very beginnings of what the various provinces are doing to develop a system that tries to keep the seniors safe. Simple things like putting in peepholes, grab bars, alarms and those types of things is what the jurisdictions are working on. We, as the Department of Health and Social Services, in my responsibility for seniors, are looking at those types of things with our other national partners.
Again, I appreciate the Minister’s response on that. Seniors often deal with a rotating cast of nurses and personal care workers each with their own different style of delivering care. In fact, patients can encounter what is called a kaleidoscope of different messages that increase the risk of communication breakdown.
Can the Minister indicate what is his department doing to improve and address this kaleidoscope of different messages our seniors receive?
As the health professionals develop the electronic medical records, when the health professional comes into the home, whether it be a home care nurse or if that senior has gone to the health centre to visit with a doctor or a registered nurse, that electronic medical record is designed to be the basis of the continuum of care. So that individuals who have been given some advice on what to do, or changing medicines or any sort of issues that was in the past where there were some confusing messages coming in from the different types of individuals or nurses that they were dealing with time to time, you would see that this is there to try to address that issue.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, thank you to the Minister. Finally, the Minister is quoted in the Yellowknifer on October 14, 2013, which I’ll table later today, that is directly related to the topic that we’re talking about here today. I’m going to quote here: “If we’re able to hold 10 seniors back for 10 years, that’s $1 million a year.” Can the Minister explain this quote to the House?
On average, long-term care is about $100,000 per year per senior, so that was why. I just did the math, so 10 seniors would be $1 million for one year.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.
