Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have questions following up to my Member’s statement earlier dealing with chronic disease management specifically around the diabetes. I had mentioned there is an expected 200 new diagnosis every year of diabetes in the Northwest Territories. So, under our watch for the 17th Legislative Assembly, we had about 800 residents, NWT residents who were diagnosed with diabetes that could have been prevented under our watch of this government. Moving forward, when the 18th Assembly gets up and running, you’ve got to give them the tools, the knowledge and everything in order that we don’t have 800 more residents or 200, even, in the first year being diagnosed with diabetes.
I’d like to ask the Minister, what’s his strategy in terms of diabetes prevention, management and screening going into the 18th Assembly? What are we currently doing right now? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The Minister of Health, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Before I get into some of the things that we’re doing, I just want to make sure that we understand that the expected 200 per year increase is still just a preliminary number. We’re actually working on a prevalence study right now that’s going to help us have better numbers and feel more confident in the numbers. It could be higher, it could be lower, but I just wanted to be clear that that’s still just a preliminary number.
We are doing a number of different things. With respect to prevention, we’re focusing on education in two streams. We’re trying to get information out there. We’ve actually, through the BETTER project, developed a number of videos that we have sent out throughout the Northwest Territories, talking about food, exercise and other issues to encourage people to understand and become aware of healthy eating and healthy living to help prevent diabetes. We have, also, with respect to effective screening, put in the new Diabetes Screening Tool Diagnosis Clinical Practice Guidelines and those have been spread out throughout the Northwest Territories to our practitioners, and our practitioners are using those now. We’re getting really positive feedback from the practitioners and the people who have been assessed. That’s one of the ways that we’re helping to do effective screening.
With respect to management, some of it is still one on one because every case is unique and every case is different, but we are working closely with patients to manage them through their process and ensure that they are getting the treatment that they deserve. Thank you.
As I recall, we used to have a really effective Diabetes Program here within the department. It did a lot of work, a lot of outreach work, mobile work in prevention, education, did the screening, actually. From what I understand, the program isn’t up and running to the full potential that it once was.
I’d like to ask the Minister, what are his plans for this Diabetes Education Program that we used to have at the Department of Health and Social Services that did a lot of good work throughout the Northwest Territories and whether the full support is going to go back into that program. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
As I indicated, through BETTER project we’ve developed these motivational videos. We’ve been working with Education, Culture and Employment that has a project called Screen Smart, which is introduced in NWT schools to help children who may be obese to pursue healthy living so they don’t develop type 2 diabetes later in life. I’m not 100 percent sure; I can’t remember the exact program the Member is referring to with respect to diabetes education, but we are, through our public health unit, getting information out there on diabetes to make sure people are as informed as possible. If the Member wants to tell me what specific program he’s referencing, I’d be happy to look into that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I think it was more of a special diabetes clinic that did a lot of work. I understand the Minister talking about the videos and Screen Smart. As I mentioned, the CDA, Canadian Diabetes Association, recognizes that for diabetes care, it’s patient-centred and delivered by a multi-disciplinary team.
What specific training do they have in diabetes? Not videos or the Screen Smart assessment. You need that one on one. You need that interaction between somebody who’s trained.
What is the Minister’s plan to create a multi-disciplinary team that’s going to go to the communities to get this information out to the residents? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The multi-disciplinary team is more focused on the effective screening and management. The promotion and education can be done through schools, can be done through many different providers out there. We are working with many different groups to get the information out there.
With respect to effective screening and management, we do have the Type 2 Diabetes Screening and Diagnostic Clinical Practice Guidelines. These were developed in conjunction with the CANRISK questionnaire. These were all introduced in the fall of 2014. It is expected that they would be applied at every NWT adult recommended age range, so individuals who may be at risk for diabetes who present to health centres throughout the Northwest Territories, whether it’s in a small community or whether it’s in one of our larger clinics in Yellowknife, our staff are trained. They can go through the questionnaires and they can work with other practitioners who can help manage diabetes, whether it’s dieticians or other services that may be available in different locations within the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I mentioned earlier, there are complications that arise from diabetes. I mentioned earlier proposing a tax on sugary drinks to offset the costs of more hospital visits, more dental appointments, more medication. To put that into perspective, I would like to ask the Minister if he knows what it costs for an individual in the Northwest Territories to deal with people who have diabetes in the Northwest Territories should they have to go through appointments for blindness, heart disease, kidney failure, lower limb amputations.
What are the overall costs to this government for people living with diabetes? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
That question is kind of impossible to answer standing up here today. Every individual is different and every situation is different. Not all individuals end up having an amputation; not all individuals end up blind. We want to manage diabetes with the patients to avoid having to go down that particular road.
We also know that diabetes is often complicated with other conditions, so how do you determine whether it’s strictly diabetes or another condition that has actually resulted in the particular amputation or blindness? It would be very difficult for us to actually quantify what is actually diabetes related and what might be related to other causes or other conditions.
I do know there are 2,900 individuals in the Northwest Territories with diabetes and that number is growing. It takes physicians’ time; it takes dieticians’ time and community health rep time to deal with all these issues, so the costs can be quite high. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Mrs. Groenewegen.
