Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The 2017 NWT Midwifery Stakeholder Engagement Report was 75 pages long. Can the Minister tell us if her department is ready to implement all 10 recommendations to ensure that all communities have access to births in their home communities within the life of the 19th Assembly? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Thebacha. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you for the question. As I said in February, we, the Department of Health and Social Services, have been successful in completing five out of 10 recommendations. The department continues towards moving to the completion of the remaining five recommendations, and we previously committed and continue to commit to coming up with a preliminary plan on how to implement these recommendations in June of 2021. The next phase of this plan is phase 2. If it has funding, it would provide four midwives in Yellowknife, one in Hay River, and one in Fort Smith. It would not provide a way for women who live in small communities with health cabins to have their children in their own communities. Birthing is really a centralized process. Thank you.
Can the Minister tell us how her department will implement all 10 recommendations of the 2017 midwifery report?
The plan is now four years old. We have committed to reviewing it. We have committed to costing out the remainder of the five recommendations, and we have said that we will provide that information by June of 2021.
Can the Minister provide a timeline for when her department expects more communities to have midwifery services in the NWT?
Hay River and Fort Smith have midwifery services at this point, and the idea of hiring one additional midwife for each of these locations is to stabilize the program. The next community on the list for midwives is Yellowknife, and as I already said, that would require the hiring of four midwives. There are some conversations going on about how the program could be expanded beyond that. Today, this very day, there is consultation going on with Fort Resolution community members and healthcare workers to find out whether they are interested in having midwives, whether they would prefer to have a doula program or an Indigenous caregiver program. Those are the kinds of things that we would like to hear, not only in Fort Resolution, but in the Deh Cho and in Behchoko, as well.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Thebacha.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister tell us when her department expects to enter into phase 2 of the midwifery service expansion? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
As I've said previously in this House, phase 2 of the midwifery program does not have funding in the current budget. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
