Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have a few questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services. Mr. Speaker, it’s been a couple of years since we had a commitment in this House for a full-time LPN in Tsiigehtchic. I’d like to ask the Minister, what is the latest update on this? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, that commitment was made prior to my term as the Minister of Health and Social Services and we have had debates in this House before. At this point in time we’re not planning to put an LPN in the community but we have been working with the community to come up with an alternative, a community-based solution. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, we have attempted to get into the community a number of times to work out that pilot with the community where we think there’s a significant opportunity to train somebody local to provide some of the emergency response as well as some of the other services in the community. Unfortunately, all the meetings that we’ve had have been cancelled due to unfortunate circumstances beyond anybody’s control. I will commit to having our staff go in there. In fact, we have been able to confirm a date. Our staff are going in to meet with the community on August 29th, which I know is a little ways a way and I understand how frustrating that can be considering how long it’s taken us to get there, but we are committed to getting this done; we know there’s interest in the community, and we have a date. Hopefully, you know, barring any unfortunate, unforeseen circumstances we’ll get in there and we’ll start developing that pilot. It’s going to be a great opportunity to work with the community to develop something specific that works with the community. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, you know I’ve said a number of times in this House every spring and fall we have a nurse in the community for a total of close to five months out of the year, which is great for the community. If the community had a nurse that is willing to live and work in the community would the department be open to this?
Mr. Speaker, the challenge of that is if we put one nurse in the community we could actually create some liability issues. I know we do it during freeze-up or break-up but we don’t have one-nurse stations here in the Northwest Territories; we’re trying to ensure that there’s proper and adequate backup so that the individuals who are on call during the evening don’t have to be on call every day 24/7. It can be quite extensive. I’m happy to have that discussion. If the Member can have that person share their information with us and let them express their desire, we’ll certainly have that discussion. Our concern is having a 24/7 person in that community. One person can’t reasonably do it. We would be looking at the alternative that we’ve discussed and coming up with a community-based solution.
I thank the Minister for that, that’s very promising. One thing the department should know that everybody that lives in Tsiigehtchic is pretty much on 24-hour call all the time because we don’t have nursing services or policing service, so the community is always the first people to act, Mr. Speaker. With that then I will be sure to pass that on to the person that is interested and get in contact with the Minister as well.
Masi. I’ll take that as a comment. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
