Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier, I had a conversation with the Minister of health about the small apartments or buildings that they have for independent living for seniors. We're looking at a shift to having seniors age at home, but it's not the only answer; it's part of a number of solutions. One area that I do like is having facilities or small, independent buildings beside the extended-care facilities where they could have additional and timely support, so I would ask the Minister: what are the benefits and what is the success of some of the buildings that have been in place for a number of years? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Hay River South. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you. Mr. Speaker, homecare, of course, is not new. It has been offered for years. We recently had the program reviewed by a third party, and they came up with some very strong recommendations for us to look closely at homecare services, what services we provide, where, and when. Those recommendations are going to be implemented within the life of this Assembly. The building piece is not really the Health and Social Services Department piece. It's really up to the NWT Housing Corporation. A few weeks ago, I went with the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation to Fort Good Hope to attend the opening of their new seniors' facility. It's not a long-term care facility; it's an independent-living facility. It's a building with nine units. I'm going to say the units are around about 650 square feet. They have linoleum floors, and everything is very accessible, with wide doorways, low counters, you can drive your wheelchair into the shower, and so on. They're really set up for people to age in place; you'd be able to stay there for a long time, and there wouldn't be any renovations necessary.
The Housing Corporation provided that half. The other half is that there are people who are going to move into that centre who need homecare, and that's the part that the Department of Health and Social Services, through NTHSSA, provides. We are very interested in expanding that partnership to other places. For example, yesterday, the Member for Nunakput talked about that in Ulukhaktok, and that, in fact, may be the answer for Ulukhaktok, that there is a building with a number of units in it where people can live independently with the support of homecare in that community rather than living in long-term care, which is more nursing-heavy and more for people who have very complex or ongoing needs that need 24/7 care. Thank you.
I would ask the Minister of health if I could somehow convince the Minister of housing to provide some of those smaller buildings in Hay River, maybe as a pilot project in the community, because I know, in the K'atlodeeche, I think they might have some. If we look at the aging at home, and I like this idea, it provides independent living, and I think it would give the seniors some sense of ownership of where they are. If I could convince housing, is she willing to have her department work and maybe look at a site adjacent to the existing extended-care facility and where the new one will be built?
I don't think I can make a commitment that's that specific right now, but yesterday, I had down here the seniors' planning study, which identifies how many seniors are in each NWT community over 60 and outlines different housing options for them. This is an NWT Housing Corporation document from the 18th Assembly. I know that the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation is very engaged with the idea of providing more seniors' housing, but I don't know where that plan is going next. I know that the facility in Fort Good Hope was the end of a series of facilities like it built around the territory. That is something that she and I also need to talk about. We're going to have to have our own retreat to get through all these issues. We need to talk about how we're going to meet those needs because, if people are not going to go into long-term care and they don't want to live in their 2,500-square-foot house, then there obviously needs to be something else available to them.
I brought up residency, and the reason why is that, within the last couple of months, I've seen a number of Northerners, indigenous to the NWT, who had to move south because there was nowhere for them in the South Slave to live. Being from Fort Smith, they came to Hay River, some of them, and they just ended up going south because they just could not find a place. What I have seen, being from Hay River and knowing what's going on, is: I do see people coming in from the South, taking up beds, taking up accommodations, and I see that as being taken away from Indigenous people and being taken away from northern people. I would ask the Minister if there is a residency clause; if not, would her department consider implementing one? If there is one, revisit it and see what we could do to give the benefit to Indigenous and northern people when it comes to extended care facilities.
Admission to long-term care has a single point of entry for the whole NWT. It's called the Territorial Admissions Committee. That committee includes membership from the health authorities; that is to say, professional health people from the health authorities and a public representative. They review all the applications to long-term care to determine eligibility. I don't know what the residency requirement is for that, but that's something that I can find out and come back to the Member with.
They, of course, manage the wait lists for long-term care beds, and I just have some updated information on the number of people on the waiting lists. Unfortunately, in Hay River, they have the highest waiting list with seven people waiting to get into Woodland Manor. Sorry. That's the second highest. The highest is actually in the Beaufort-Delta, nine people in the waiting list; seven in Hay River; six in Yellowknife to get into Aven Manor; six to get into the Stanton Extended Care Unit; three to get into the Fort Simpson elders care home; and then Sahtu, Fort Smith, and Tlicho don't have waiting lists. I am encouraged that these waiting lists are relatively small, but the fact is that beds don't turn over that often. I think the average stay in long-term care now is about two-and-a-half years. That's one of the reasons that we are building more long-term care beds is to take into account this need.
I don't know about limiting residency by origin. I think that there is a residency requirement, but it's my understanding that, because we receive Canada Health Transfer money, we need to provide services to everyone who is a resident of the NWT. There isn't a distinction made between someone who meets the residency requirement of, let's say, one year, and somebody who has been here for their whole life. Those are certainly issues that I will investigate further and respond to the Member with.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The revision of the number of beds went from 400-something down to 160-something. I guess that's based on data, analysis, statistics, and whatever, but will the Minister make that information available to us as Members? Will it be shared with the public how they arrived at those numbers? I know people in Hay River are going to want to see how those were arrived at. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Yesterday, I tabled the Bureau of Statistics study on the long-term care bed projections, and I also tabled the department's response to that study. Both of those are on the Legislative Assembly website, and of course, they are public documents available to everyone to look at. Thank you.
