Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are directed to the Minister of Health and Social Services and are in regard to my Member’s statement. In this day and age we still have critical programs and services not being delivered to a lot of our more isolated communities. I think in order to have healthy and vibrant communities, the building block of any community is to develop a healthy side to those communities. I’d like to ask the Minister what his department is doing to ensure we have essential programs and services delivered in all communities so we have healthy and vibrant communities.
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As a government we are doing a number of things collectively. Health looks at all the health services with the nursing stations and with the medical side, the social services side, the child welfare piece. We have significant education presence in communities. We have Municipal and Community Affairs that is there with communities as they work on the services that lead to a better quality of life as well as on the recreation side. We have ITI there supporting business, local business and small business, to do work at the community level to help with the economy. We have Transportation there building infrastructure with Public Works and Services.
Collectively as a government we spend a significant portion of our $1.3 billion in the communities trying to deal with the issues that the Member has talked about so passionately over the last 16 years.
Again, I think it’s important that we do as government seem to have a lot of programs and services in the larger centres. A lot of the time we lose sight of those programs and services that do not exist in a lot of our communities. I think I’ve talked about respite care and midwifery, caregiving programs, wellness programs, and even mental health and addictions programs. Those are the building blocks for healthy communities. I’d like to ask the Minister what the department is doing to ensure that it streamlines the funding that is going into the area of Health and Social Services, and ensuring that there’s a base funding for programs and services in all communities so that at least they are meeting the minimum needs of all our communities.
If I may use the specific example that the Member referenced, the midwifery review is going to look at potential birthing services in other communities across the North, keeping in mind that the Mackenzie Delta, Nahendeh, Tu Nedhe, Nunakput, Sahtu, Monfwi, and the Deh Cho have no birthing services of any kind. As we look towards what is the best service and how do we provide those services, that’s one of the key factors we have to keep in mind.
Again, in order for programs and services to exist, you need bodies on the ground. It does take investment. We have health centres in the Northwest Territories that don’t have nurses in them. I think it’s a shame in this day and age that we are funding health centres without the core staff to run them. I’d like to ask the Minister what he is doing to ensure we have nursing services, and programs and services in communities where we have the basic infrastructure already on the ground, yet we’re not delivering programs and services.
As a government we have committed many millions of dollars coming up with our own program for nursing in the North to train Northerners up to the degree level. We have expanded into the nurse practitioner range. We are trying to work with nurse graduates to give them enough additional training so that they can actually go out into the communities where they may be by themselves or where they may in fact be playing a lead role like community health nurses or nurses in charge. While we still have some ways to go, we have minimized our reliance on local nurses and casual nurses and remain committed to training Northerners for those roles.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final supplementary, Mr. Krutko.
Again, I think that people have to realize that a lot of times our services in the communities include one doctor’s visit a month. If you’re lucky you might see a social worker once a month. The same thing with regard to core service positions, whether it’s dental care once a year. That’s the type of stuff that people want to see improvement on.
What are we doing to improve the number of days that doctors and professionals spend in those communities and expand that service so they can see more doctors visiting, more nursing days in our communities, and the same thing with dental care?
Last week, speaking as the Minister of Finance, I gave a fiscal update that indicated the financial fiscal constraints that we are under as a government and that our ability to deal with a lot of new program demands is very limited. This applies specifically as we look at the very great demand from the communities to look at service improvements. We will do what we can through the business planning process, through the forced growth that we do have available, but we are limited by our fiscal constraints that we are currently under. Through the business planning process coming up for 2012-2013 we’ll be looking at trying to address more effectively some of the issues that the Member has mentioned.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
