Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to thank the Minister of Health and Social Services for tabling, earlier this week, the Northwest Territories Health Status Report. There is obviously some very valuable information contained in that report. I’ve spoken many times about the government’s need to measure and evaluate the success and/or failure of our ability as a government to exert change in key social and health indicators. This report, Mr. Speaker, should be used as a baseline for the incoming government which will be elected this fall.
I’d like to point out a few statistics contained in the report that would indicate that we need to re-evaluate how we’re dealing with some key areas of concern.
Self-reported health relates to how healthy a person feels and is an important precursor to future health care use and mortality. On a national comparison, 61 percent of Canadians reported excellent or very good health, where in the NWT that number was 52 percent, which is well behind. In fact, from 2005, when we were at 63 percent, the number has dropped in the four reporting years to 52 percent in 2009.
Obesity is another area where the Northwest Territories is continuing to seem to be not able to swing those numbers in the right direction. Mr. Speaker, 63 percent of adults in the Northwest Territories are overweight or obese. The NWT rate is 10 percent higher than the national average of 51 percent. The link for these high obesity rates is the fact that since 2003, when 54 percent of our residents reported to be active or at least moderately active, that number has fallen drastically to 41 percent in 2009.
Even though we’ve had campaigns targeting sexually transmitted infections such as Chlamydia, syphilis and gonorrhoea, the prevalence of these STIs in our territory, especially in the smaller communities, is simply shocking. The rate per 10,000 across this country is 24 per 10,000. In the Northwest Territories it’s 199.5 per 10,000 and, Mr. Speaker, 396 per 10,000 in our small communities; numbers that we certainly have to address, Mr. Speaker.
In the area of mental health hospitalizations, 58 percent of all hospital stays related to mental health were for substance-related disorders. This certainly comes with a cost to our health care system, Mr. Speaker, and could make a very good case, once again, for a treatment and rehabilitation centre here in Yellowknife.
I’ll have questions for the Minister of Health at the appropriate time. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.
