Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have all heard of Brian Sinclair, Joyce Echaquan, and our own Hugh Pakik. These situations were caused by someone's opinion. Who advocates before it gets this serious? My question for the Minister of Health and Social Services is: What option does someone have immediately if they feel they are not getting the help they need or feel that they have been treated unfairly or with discrimination in the Health and Social Services Department, which includes the hospitals, clinics, health centres, and social services offices?
Thank you, Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I appreciate the question. My suggestion would be that the person and/or the people who are with that person speak to the nurse in charge or the patient care coordinator. If they continue to be unsatisfied with the answers, they should call their MLA, who will be able to direct them to quality assurance and other resources that will help them to be heard. Thank you.
Next time, I will make sure, when I'm treated badly, I'll call myself; and I did. Would the Minister consider a position in each of the hospitals or regional centres that would assist with being an advocate for patients who need help navigating the system? Because not everybody, when they come in from a small community, knows where to go, knows how to communicate, and they are afraid of the healthcare system. We do have history of not trusting the healthcare system in this country, Indigenous people.
I'd like to think that everybody in our large healthcare facilities, and in our small ones, too, is a navigator who is there to help patients access the care that they come to the hospital or the healthcare centre for. We do have the quality assurance people, although they tend not to be standing in the foyer of the hospital, ready to give advice, but there are people who work at the front desk in the Inuvik Regional Hospital and at the Stanton Territorial Hospital who should be able to direct patients to the places they need to go and to direct them in the language of their choice. We have committed to providing culturally safe healthcare, and being able to direct people efficiently and in their language is certainly central to that.
I hear the Minister, and I hear what she says. We do have great staff, but not necessarily are these staff trained to be able to understand a lot of the systems. This government assisted Aurora College to create a nursing program 20-plus years ago. We've had 20-plus years of graduates of nursing. The goal of that program was to have Indigenous nurses working in their own communities for their own people. It's still not happening.
I would like to ask the Minister again if we can have patient advocates and have them be nurses in these hospitals. If we can't have nurses in these hospitals, then can we at least have nurses who can help our Indigenous people work through the system, if they feel that they have been discriminated against or if they don't even understand what they are doing? They're missing appointments. Their medical travel is being booked on the day before they have to leave, and they have no escort. There are multiple things, but I think it needs a health background to be able to navigate the system.
I understand what the Member is getting to there, that medical travel to a larger facility like the Inuvik Regional Hospital or Stanton Territorial Hospital can be quite a daunting prospect, and people may not feel comfortable asking the questions that they need to in order to have the answers that they need to navigate the system. I am not aware that there is a particular navigator who is on call in Stanton Territorial Hospital or in the Inuvik Regional Hospital, but that is certainly something that I can inquire about.
I think the longer-term solution is to continue to train people in cultural competency so that they have a better understanding of some of the history and background that people bring to healthcare with them, a background of not being served well, in some cases not having good interactions, and to be able to work with people on the basis that they are not comfortable, likely, right where they are and who need some additional help.
Thank you Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I hear the Minister. I know that we are supposed to be rolling out a very detailed cultural awareness campaign soon, and all of the GNWT staff are going to be there; but there is no course in the world that is going to change somebody who doesn't want to take it. That's the issue. These are the issues. Our people are still going to be afraid of the healthcare system, so they're not going to speak up; they're not going to advocate for themselves. I, again, just want to push the Minister to really look into these types of positions for our people in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I realize that there is no easy fix in this area. I don't believe that cultural competency training is optional in the Health and Social Services world. We have committed ourselves to providing culturally sensitive care, in part because of the case that the Member spoke about and other more recent cases that we have heard about on the news. We want to provide a service in which all people in the NWT, whether they are newcomers to the NWT or they have been here since time immemorial, feel comfortable accessing the services that they need to live their best lives. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Great Slave.
