[Remote] Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Minister of Health and Social Services.
Some people experience with accessing or working to access support services feel that support services from NTHSSA are at an alltime low and are very siloed in today's environment. Schools are currently trying to find funds to pay outofpocket to secure access to support services like speech language pathology, occupational therapy, but this is incredibly costly.
So will the GNWT work with schools to fund access to support services if it does not have the capacity to deliver those services in house? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Minister responsible for Health and Social Services.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I appreciate the Member bringing this question forward. We recently reorganized speech language pathology to focus on more equitable service delivery for children in age birth to five years old. So we did that knowing that this is a critical period of a child's development and that there are considerable wait times for rehabilitation services, and we wanted to make sure that we could improve the turnaround time for these basic screening tools that practitioners use with this group. So equity is really our concern here, and the refocus of service in speech language pathology is the means that we're taking.
We have high staff vacancy rates in these rehabilitation service areas, and so as a result we have long wait times. The problem is that as with other healthcare professionals, there is a very strong demand for these for these professions and not a very robust workforce and so we, like everywhere else in the country, have experienced a shortage of people in these areas and the result is unfortunate wait times for patients. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate the Minister's willingness to have this conversation together. Today, many schools are fall are finding that they they follow the process to reach out to secure support services within NTHSSA but that they don't necessarily hear back from NTHSSA about the appointments, the timing to wait for them, or the availability.
And so will Health and Social Services commit to service standards for schools so that schools are able to communicate not only with students and families but also understand what is required to access supports for students? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm not going to be able to make a commitment to service standards knowing that we are shortstaffed and that the answer may be greater spending which we don't have in the budget at this time. But certainly I don't see any reason that people who call and ask for appointments can't receive accurate information about their wait times so that they can make informed decisions about what their next steps are. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, and I appreciate the Minister's comment. Some of the problem, though, is that without the service standards, some people aren't receiving that phone call back or that email back to let them know that it's going to be a year or a year and a half or two years before a student receives services. So the schools are really unable to make alternate arrangements or alternate plans for the care and the learning and development of that student.
And so will the Minister commit, then, to response service standards for school professionals so that NTHSSA is committing to responding to schools within a certain amount of time so that they can move on to other alternative approaches? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think that what I can commit to is to learn more about the detail of this area and to consult with my colleague from ECE to sort out how we can handle these requests more efficiently so that parents have a clearer idea sooner in the day about where they stand accessing rehabilitation services. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate that this is a bigger conversation, and I welcome having a larger conversation with the Minister for sure. And one of the things that might be helpful for both schools and residents alike is having a public reporting mechanism where people can really see what the realistic wait times are for different specialty services in the Northwest Territories. And then from there, are able to either make alternate arrangements or look at other interventions in the meantime, especially when it comes to learning and development of students across the Northwest Territories.
So is the Minister willing to commit to public reporting of wait times for NTHSSA specialty services? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I appreciate the question. I know that the department does track wait times in both the Beaufort Delta and through Stanton Territorial Hospital for these specialties, rehabilitation services for children. I am not clear how this information is shared with the public. But I would like to find that out and I, on the face of it, would like to advocate that this information be shared with the public so that people can make appropriate decisions about alternatives. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Great Slave.
