Thank you, Madam Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Health and Social Services in regard to my opening Member’s statement about suicides.
The first question is: Do the health authorities keep track of self-inflicted visits to emergency rooms that can potentially lead to suicide? Does the department or authorities keep those kinds of statistics? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. With regard to the statistics related to attempted suicides, data would actually be incredibly difficult to collect because there are multiple diagnoses that an individual coming in who has attempted suicide or believed to have attempted suicide might come in with. Client diagnosis codes would often be related to the method of attempted suicide, how somebody chooses to attempt to take their own life. So, there would be multiple different codes that would be used. So, as a result, it would be very difficult to provide that information. Thank you.
The reason I bring this up is we do have a Mental Health Act that does allow for physicians and practitioners to hold an individual for up to 24 hours, that’s the first step, and in a lot of cases, should there be alcohol involved, sometimes the individuals are let out of the care and treatment of the health centre or the hospital, and that’s why these kind of statistics would be good to help develop a better plan of action in terms of what steps can the authorities or the hospitals do or the health centres do to keep these people in care until they are ready to get a full assessment.
I’d like to ask the Minister, does the department have a suicide prevention plan currently that they can put into action here? Does the department have a suicide prevention plan?
There are a number of different things that happen depending on the location you’re at. The NWT Community Counselling Standards Manual has a standard on crisis intervention, which would respond to crisis situations similar to suicide or attempted suicide. The standard identifies suicide protocols and procedures for action to be taken, documentation and screening, such as the mental status examination and suicide risk assessments. So those happen in the community if somebody presents with an attempted suicide. The manual also includes suicide prevention resources that an individual may access.
When it comes to Stanton and/or the Inuvik Regional Hospital, there are some additional things that may happen. When a client presents to the hospital – Stanton, that is – having attempted suicide, medical stabilization and care is the first priority. We want to make sure the person is safe. Following stabilization, a referral to an appropriate psychiatric service is initiated and the psychiatric unit at Stanton Hospital have a suicide precaution policy, which includes suicide risk assessment.
Within the Inuvik Regional Hospital, a standardized assessment tool is used for conducting suicide risk assessment. Clients who have been medevaced from an outlying community are often admitted to the hospital for 24 hours of observation and then risk assessments are conducted on the individual and the risk assessments also must include a plan of care. So, depending on where you are, different things will happen, but there are protocols and programs in place to support all those individuals.
Thank you. You’ve heard in this House before there’s been a call from some of the Members that represent small communities for an RCMP officer and nurse. As I stated, we have 65 councillors in 19 communities but we have 33 communities in the Northwest Territories, and in some of these communities we only have a nurse that can provide that type of care or services or even counselling.
Being this is such a big issue, and not looking at it this way when a person really needs that help for some intervention, how is the Minister going to address not having that nurse or that counsellor in a small community for the immediate responses that sometimes we don’t always see because of the lack of resources that we have in some of these small communities?
I recognize from the Member’s earlier statements that obviously face to face is preferable. That is not always the case, but we do have an ability to have individuals call certain professionals and receive services by telephone or by telehealth. But it’s not just a matter of the professional provider. We are eager and interested in helping individuals within communities develop skills so that they can provide support to the individuals. One of the things that we are doing is Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training, which we are offering across the Northwest Territories.
As you all know, ASIST is an internationally recognized, well-researched training program that is based on best practices in suicide prevention and intervention. It is a two-day workshop, and we are looking to have it delivered across the Territories for any individual who wishes to take it so that they can be aware of the signs of individuals who may be at risk, so we would continue to get that out there for all people.
Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Final supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. That training program, ASIST, I have heard nothing but good things about it.
Would the Minister, in terms of that training, look at possibly putting that program in the areas where we don’t have a nurse or we don’t have an RCMP officer as a priority of the first places that we get that training to? Would he do that, and also, if he can also maybe share with the House how many communities actually do have that ASIST training in place right now?
The ASIST program, we have put dollars in the budget so that every authority can deliver two ASIST programs or two training workshops. To date, in ’12, ’13, ‘14, 144 individuals across the Northwest Territories have taken that training, and we will continue to encourage the authorities to use the dollars they have received to deliver that program in as many communities as they can over time.
Thank you, Minister Abernethy. The Minister for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
