Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I have questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services. I would like to follow up on some of the questions that I had previously. Can the Minister please advise this House: Does the department authority track issues that are brought forth to them, and how is this process done?
Masi. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it depends on the situation. There are a couple of different ways information might come to an authority. As I said, we do have the patient representatives in the individual authorities, where individuals can go if they've actually had concerns about how services were provided. These patient representatives can actually do some investigation and research to find out what happened, and offer recommendations to the CEO to ensure that those types of situations, if any problems occurred, won't happen again. Those individuals track their own information and do share it with the CEOs, but that information is not always shared publicly. We also have situations where, if an individual is having difficulty navigating the system, we strongly encourage those individuals to get in touch with the system navigator who can help that individual navigate a system.
In both these situations, we are often dealing with individual client information, and that information, due to privacy reasons, would not be shared, but it is tracked through a system navigator at a department level and for the individual patient representatives at an authority level.
I thank the Minister for his answer. I understand the confidentiality of these matters, but is it in any way possible that you can track in specific areas -- say that travel is an issue, appointments are an issue. Are you are able to provide a breakdown to us on the other side so that we are aware of what the issues are besides what we have presently?
As a standard practice, the information pertaining to an individual concerned in a complaint is only shared as needed to help resolve that complaint, and at this time, there is no central collection or reporting of information on these individual cases. I can say that the CEOs from the authorities meet on a regular basis, where they can discuss common or reoccurring issues or themes, so that they can work with the department to resolve the bigger picture issues. I can say that, as we move forward to a single authority, we will be better positioned to have some tracking mechanisms to track similar issues so that we can ensure that we are getting that information, so that we can make system improvements as a whole to ensure that reoccurring situations of concern are not occurring in our system.
I thank the Minister for that answer and I'm looking forward to this new system. Hopefully we will be able to make better changes to it. The Minister spoke about an audit that was done in 2013 regarding the Dehcho Health and Social Services Authority. Can the Minister tell us if the audit was done by the department authority or done by an external process, and who was engaged in the process?
The department does occasionally do quality reviews and other audits of the regional authorities. In the situation that the Member is talking about, it was an audit that was actually done by the department. These are internal systems audits, and the results aren't shared, but as I indicated the other day, I would be happy to sit down with the Member and go through the audit with the Member so that he has an understanding of where we are and what we learned for that particular audit.
We do accreditations here in the Northwest Territories, and Stanton, the Beaufort-Delta, Hay River and Fort Smith authorities are all accredited. To be accredited, you have to have a number of audits done on a regular basis to ensure that the authorities and the facilities are meeting certain standards. As we move forward in one system, we’re hoping to get an accredited system as well as accredited facilities, which will make sure that there are regular audits and reviews being done of service delivery to ensure that we are meeting the needs of our residents.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
I thank the Minister for that answer and I look forward to meeting with him on the audit. I guess my struggle is that the people of Nahendeh have lots of concerns, and they are feeling like their voices are not being heard. In saying that, will the Minister and his staff be willing to come to the region and listen to the residents' concerns and recommendations to help improve the health and social services system in Nahendeh, and potentially have an impact on the NWT? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Absolutely. I’m certainly willing to do a tour with the Member through his riding, meet with the residents, and hear their individual concerns, but in addition to that, I would still encourage the Member to have constituents work with the quality assurance representative in their authority. If they are having trouble navigating the system, please have them get in touch with the system navigator, and as we move forward to a single Authority, there will be a wellness council re-established in the region where the individuals, the residents, will have a voice on regional delivery, but more importantly on territorial delivery. There are lots of things happening. I think there are some good things happening and they are going to help improve health care here in the Northwest Territories, and I am absolutely willing to meet with the MLA and his constituents in his riding.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nunakput.
