Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Health and Social Services and follow up on my Member’s statement earlier today where I talked about mental health issues and Stanton.
I’m wondering if the Minister could tell me how often and what criteria is used for reviewing internal policies to ensure safety and security of staff, patients and public within Stanton.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That’s a pretty broad question. Being a facility that it is and the services it provides, there are any number of processes in place to review incidents and happenings at the hospital. If the Member wants to be more specific, I can try to address those.
I’ll try to be a little bit more specific. I’m talking primarily about the psychiatric unit. In November last year a young lady was released on a weekend pass and she disappeared over the weekend and nobody has seen her since. In the last couple of weeks we’ve heard a number of reports of patients from the psychiatric unit coming and going almost as they please. I’m wondering what it takes for us to get in there and review the policies, protocols and procedures of that unit so that we can ensure that when people do leave, that we know they’re coming back, or that there’s some requirement for them to be supervised while they’re released so that we don’t get these situations where people walk out of their homes on a November day and don’t come back, as well as, you know, our patients who are going down for a cigarette or something, we have confidence that our procedures allow or ensure that they come back safe. What does it take?
I acknowledge that we have had some incidents at the hospital in that specific unit. In general, every pass, the patients in the psychiatric unit are allowed to have temporary passes depending on their conditions and situations. It’s a rare situation where patients are held there without having any passes. There are medical assessments and lots of work done to make sure that one can and is allowed to have a temporary pass, whether it is to go out for a cigarette or sometimes they are allowed to go to visit families. The primary objective for that service is to eventually be able to integrate these patients back into the community. It’s on a case-by-case basis but the staff and providers do constant assessment of the patients on leave.
Thanks to the Minister for that response. I accept the need and encourage the use of temporary passes. My concern is more along the lines that over the years -- and we can go way back to the beginning of Stanton -- we’ve had situations where people have gone who were supposed to come back and were never able to come back. I’m curious; at what point do we do a bit of an internal review on those passes and whether or not we have to have situations where families have to be a supervisor or guardian of a person who is released? We want to help these people. I know the Minister wants to help these people. I’m more concerned about the processes right now to make sure that these unfortunate situations don’t happen.
We need to learn from the unfortunate situations that have occurred and fix our policies and procedures so that they work in the best interest. I’m still curious; will she commit to doing a review, of having Stanton doing a review of the policies and procedures in that unit within Stanton to make sure that we have a greater sense of security and greater sense of confidence that our patients and public and our staff will be safe?
We are talking about I think two things here. On both counts we are doing a review. One, the Member is aware of the mental health and addictions review that we are undertaking as an entire mental health programming at the hospital as well as in communities. We acknowledge that there is room for improvement in that area and we have hired a study team, consulting team who have been here and talked to the stakeholders. We’re looking forward to having recommendations on that to improve our Mental Health and Addictions Program as a whole.
With respect to the psychiatric unit, every incident where they’ve had situations that the Member describes, yes, we have done the review and they are working and put safeguards in place to prevent those incidents from happening again. It is acknowledged, though, that the patients do get to go on a pass without having an escort at all times. I mean, in many cases the passes work and the patients benefit from that. It’s just that we have unfortunate situations where mishaps do happen.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. Final supplementary, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister for that response. I’d be interested in seeing the recommendations that have come out of those reviews of the psychiatric unit to learn what lessons we have learned and what changes have been made to improve the services and protect our staff, patients and the public. Can the Minister share those recommended changes with the Members of this House so that we have some confidence that things are being done in that unit for the safety of our patients, staff and public? Thank you.
Yes, I will do that.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
