Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Last month I was able to attend the AGM for the Beaufort-Delta Health and Social Services Authority in Inuvik where a lot of really surprising stats caught my attention in terms of how services are brought forth within that authority, and the hard work that the staff are trying to do moving forward in terms of having to do the best they can with the resources that they receive and the funding that they receive through this government.
Some interesting stats that I’d like to share with committee, the Members here today and Cabinet were in terms of mental health and counselling services and psychiatric services, something that I’ve been a champion for within this government since the beginning of this Legislature.
With the counselling service in the Beaufort-Delta there were 699 new referrals in this last fiscal year. Of that, 3,186 hours were spent providing direct counselling. That equals about 424 days, regular job days, and that’s not even including any type of administrative work, paperwork or any other type of follow-up. Of those that were referred to counselling, there were also 43 percent no-shows. Even if there was a fraction of those no-shows that showed up, it would have put a more extensive workload on the counsellors that are already providing very long services already.
However, there are some good things that were discussed and that was the Beaufort-Delta Health and Social Services Authority provided some 237 community education events in terms of prevention and promotion, something that this government has discussed and brought forth over the last couple of years, and that equates to about 403 hours spent providing education to people across the Northwest Territories; well, particularly in the Beaufort-Delta region.
This only reflects a portion of the communities in the Northwest Territories. If we were to get these kinds of stats throughout all health authorities across the NWT, I’m sure it’s going to show us that we do need to provide more funding, more services, more resources throughout the Northwest Territories.
I will ask questions to the Minister of Health and Social Services later, on how we are attacking this problem and how we are able to find solutions.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
