(Translation) Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is just a general comment, and it will be a short comment; it is not a question. We respect our elders and I don't think a lot of people respect their elders all the time. In my constituency, people are looking forward to having an elders' facility. We have to work harder to look after our elders. We are here today because our elders took care of us. We have to make sure our elders are well taken care of and they have places to stay where they feel comfortable.

We all know we are in times of fiscal restraint, but, even if we are in times of fiscal restraint, we have to work hard to look after our elders. And, not just our elders, but also our youth. I know there is housing available for elders, but they have to make sure elders' facilities are closer to communities and in the communities. We don't see our elders very much in the community or in public places, but we have to think of them and we should be concerned about where they live.

Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to make general comments about that. I said I would make my comment short, so that is it, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, there is some budget in 1997 and 1999 for a family group home in Rae-Edzo.

Mr. Chairman, the Member is referring to the proposal that was put forward by the Dogrib band in June of 1994, with using a building that's existing and providing renovation. Public Works did an inspection that was completed September 1st. A report was expected on September 9th. What we are trying to do is look at the renovation costs, and we have an estimate. So what we want to do is look for the funding within our existing resources in the 1994-95 capital plan. So we're pursuing the issue as we made a commitment to do so, to cover off the particular problem at this point in time. We thought that we would be able to identify a source for the operation and maintenance costs, but we're falling a little bit short so we have to do a little bit more work on that.

Mr. Chairman, I have had a number of meetings with the chief and other band members on the need. We have discussed what's being done now, so we are making a certain amount of expenditures already in the care of children. What we're really trying to do is to pull all those funds together. I didn't anticipate pulling the capital funds forward on a new facility, but rather to reorganize the dollars that are being expended to provide for the renovation of the building, which is somewhere around $94,000. I think we've almost identified all the dollars that are required, already. The operation and maintenance part of it, we're still working on. So we're still committed to try to get that done now within existing funds.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just general comments on this Department of Health and Social Services. This is the first opportunity we've had to discuss this department after it's amalgamation, so I wish the department luck in the work they have to do to amalgamate these two departments into one department.

In the area of health, in Fort Simpson, over the last three years, I've raised this issue with regard to the hospital that was there. Historically, there has always been a hospital in Fort Simpson. It goes back to the time when they had a hospital there where they took care of the TB patients and so forth. Once this 1988 health transfer happened with the federal government, since that time the hospital services have deteriorated quite a bit to now where we don't have much service.

The staff and the doctors in the hospital are very good, but this department has eroded the services and moved everything to Yellowknife, as in everybody's case. People from Simpson have been asking to maintain the hospital and improve the services there. If you look at it, people from that region, my constituents have to get chartered out of the smaller communities like Trout Lake, Nahanni Butte, Jean Marie, Fort Liard, even Wrigley, to Fort Simpson and then get on a sched flight to Yellowknife. A charter from Trout Lake to Simpson is about $600 for a one-way trip. Then you tag on the cost of the sched flight to Yellowknife and costs of accommodating them here at the Vital Abel Home for a number of days; that's quite a lot of cost just to take care of people to come here, sometimes just to get an X-ray and sometimes to get blood work done. That's a lot of cost to do that.

What I'm saying is if we could look at beefing up the services that the hospital could provide in Simpson, perhaps it may cost some money up front, but in the long run it may save this government some dollars by cutting out all the travel that is going on.

Just recently, Mr. Chairman, there was a birth here in Yellowknife by a woman living in Simpson. She had to come here for six weeks before she had her baby. She had to leave her husband and children at home and this family expressed their concerns to me. They appreciated the service that was provided to them, but while the government is talking about restraint, and it is all over the press, they turn around and spend money. They told me they were spending a lot of money just being here. If you compound that with everyone else that has to go through that, that is an enormous cost.

The argument in Simpson is we've always had a hospital there; why not beef up some of the services there and any equipment that may be required. In the SCOF presentation, we talked about distance health systems technology that allows for remote consultations between a major centre and a smaller centre. In this case, this is happening between Edmonton and Yellowknife. As well, there is going to be transmission of radiology, ultrasound and electrocardiogram data between Inuvik and Yellowknife. If that type of technology is available, why can't it be available to smaller communities, rather than incurring all these costs and moving people around? If that technology is available, why couldn't we have it in the hospital in Fort Simpson?

There may be some expense up front, but in the long-term, it may save some bucks. It might improve the delivery of health services to the people in my constituency. I am focusing on my constituency because I understand it the most, but there might be other centres in the north that may provide those types of services.

We have a problem in Simpson. The department has not been able to determine whether or not they can provide these additional services until studies have been done to determine what kinds of services can be provided in the Fort Simpson area. I've been pushing to maintain the hospital, but there are other ideas out there on how to save money on the government side by cutting more in Simpson. I'm asking if you could look at it seriously and try to determine if providing better services might cut down the costs in the long run.

The whole issue of health boards comes into play here too, Mr. Chairman. We don't have health boards in our area, therefore we don't have people at the community level involved in decisions about health. My colleague from Deh Cho, Mr. Gargan, spoke about this earlier in his general comments; about how we don't have a health board in the Deh Cho area. I think it's necessary to look at that. I think it is important to have some sort of group or committee in the communities that deal with community health.

There was the case in Wrigley this past summer where a nurse left the community because she was threatened by community members. She didn't have anywhere to turn, so she left. Upon working with the Department of Health and Social Services and the Mackenzie Regional Health Board, the band from Wrigley had a meeting and determined that the best way to solve the problem was to have the band become more involved and, at the same time, to form a community health committee in Wrigley, where the committee would work with the nurse and the community to determine the types of services Health provides to them.

In the final outcome, the nurse who left returned after being talked to by the chief. That is a good example of how a community health committee could work in a small community. We need them not only for the services, but the type of equipment we may need in these communities. I think it's important to go in that direction.

The other point I would like to make, and it may be an O and M issue, is there is a problem in Simpson where we have one doctor who is contracted with the Mackenzie Regional Health Board. There are two; they alternate, but one left and went to Rankin Inlet. We only have one left there. Just last week, I was talking to the mayor of Simpson who had to go for an appointment. He told me he wanted to see the doctor immediately but the doctor was so booked, they told him to come the next week. There is a requirement for better service there, so there is not just one doctor, but perhaps two.

This is one of the complaints I am starting to receive from my constituency. The doctor and nurses are very busy and if you go there for some medical treatment, even if it is sort of an emergency, you are asked to come back at a later date because there is too much work for them. These are the types of concerns I would like to express about health in my area.

In the area of social services, I have a number of concerns. One of them deals with the community of Fort Liard. I have been asking for an elders' facility in the community. Quite a few elders live there. Some of them have families and one of the ideas coming from there is, because some of the elders have their own homes, that we provide some funding for them to attach additions to the units so family members can live with them.

On the other hand, there are some elders who don't have families who require a home. The band, over 20 years ago, built a log structure of four units. But, it doesn't have running water or constant heat; it has wood heat. As a result of being so old, it has deteriorated and nobody is living there any more. The band did try to take it upon themselves to do something for their people, but now it is up to this government to provide that type of facility. That is one of the points I would like to raise as a general comment. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have a quick question. We, too, have been having problems with nursing personnel in Coral Harbour. But, this is more of a general question, not so much about the capital area, but more in O and M. But it does have to do with long-term goals, and is mentioned in the Minister's opening remarks. I guess my question is, whether Social Services will able to find out the condition of clients from the health centres now, with this consolidation, or vice versa. Will the nursing station be able to find out about living standards in relation to the health conditions of a patient or their family, with this consolidation, so that these two departments can work together? Will the two sections in the same community be able to work together?

Sometimes what happens is an interrelated problem. In one community, a patient will go to the nursing station and is sick and the health centres won't find out what the living condition of that family is. They are required to work together in this area.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe that one of the main reasons it was very important to amalgamate or to consolidate Health and Social Services was to, once and for all, get a very much closer working relationship between the health component of programs and the social service component of the programs.

The further realigning of some of the resources going to Education, Culture and Employment will allow the social services worker, that program, to spend more time on the area of their expertise, in terms of counselling and just being more able to do a lot of the work they've been trained for, rather than be bogged down by a lot of paperwork which is the case right now, in terms of being fully responsible for issuing social service cheques and social service assessments. I think that this would accommodate an awful lot in the area of putting the two resources together very closely, and it will also help to overcome some of the feeling of isolation that the health centre staff has sometimes because, by and large, the social service counsellors and the CHRs that we have are much closer to the community, or from time to time are the people themselves or the people who are indigenous to the particular community.

So I think many of the issues that create problems because of people working in two separate areas without talking to each other a lot will be overcome. I know the social services workers are certainly looking forward to the time when they can do the job they're trained for and work with the health centre at the same time, rather than being tied down with paperwork.

So, Mr. Chairman, the Member is exactly right. That was the intent of trying to put the two program areas together.

Mr. Chairman, I'm really not aware of a CHR half-time and a SS half-time being combined to make one person year. Unless, what the Member is saying is that the social worker is only a half-time term position and the CHR is a half-time position. My understanding from the beginning of the CHR program, was that those positions would be full time.

But one of the things is that I think when we're doing this amalgamation or consolidation and with the Education department taking over certain responsibilities, what could happen then, we could sit down with the community and assess the person years they have in their community, whether it's an employment officer, a GLO, a CHR or a social worker, and will try to come to some consideration with the community as to what kind of positions in that community are most important. So putting all those different resources together could possibly create a better support within those programs than we've had before. I know there are little bits and pieces here and there that we tried to accommodate in a piecemeal fashion because issues come up; but now I think we can start looking at a community in terms of the total holistic need and saying where do you feel that these positions are best placed. Some of the positions may be redundant. Then giving the person years clearer terms of reference on their job functions and training people for the right reason to do a certain job, probably would allow in most cases to put together a fairly good package along with the community. We would want to do it along with the community.