Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would have to take that as notice because I do not have the answer on that, but I will get the answer for the Member. Thank you.

The supplementary has been taken as notice. Item 6, oral questions. The honourable Member for Hay River North, Mr. Delorey.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I stated in my Member's statement, the fact that women have to leave Hay River and come to Yellowknife to give birth has many negative impacts. For most families, the birth of a child is a family event. There are many things that make this next to impossible when women have to come to Yellowknife. For example, husbands are working and they may have other children who are in school at the present time. I would like to ask the Minister responsible for Health and Social Services what we can do to help these families that have to leave Hay River and come to Yellowknife to give birth? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Delorey. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Health and Social Services, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, obviously the best solution to this problem would be if we could recruit some resident positions for Hay River. However, in the immediate future, it does not seem as if that is going to happen, although the health board and the department have been very active in attempting to recruit physicians for Hay River. Now when patients, mothers need to come here to have babies, they are asked to come three weeks in advance of the delivery date. That does cause issues of separation from family, care for the other children that may be in the family, accommodation and travel. It raises a lot of not only financial, but also practical issues for families.

Recognizing that, Mr. Speaker, I have asked the department to look at what kind of support we might be able to offer to women from Hay River and other communities, for that matter, who find themselves having to come into the community ahead of time. I think it is a very important issue the Member raises, and certainly we hear about it in Hay River as a very high priority. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Minister. Supplementary, Mr. Delorey.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, the Minister raises a point of cost factor and when you look at having to come to Yellowknife for three weeks and being responsible for travel, accommodations and meals, for a lot of the women, they do not have...they are not covered by any plan, and that gets to be very expensive. Could the Minister inform us as to whether there are dollars in place to be able to help these families that are finding themselves in that situation? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Delorey. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Health and Social Services, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, for the patient or the mother themselves, there is accommodation available through the boarding home here, but that does not take into account that husbands may wish to accompany women to be with them and they would not be able to access that service. I have asked the department to look at what we might be able to do in terms of temporary accommodation for them to offset the costs of this.

As far as travel goes, it is like any other medical travel. Only those people who do not qualify for full coverage and are involved in the co-payment would be expected to pay. However, those people are a fairly significant portion of the population in Hay River. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Minister. Supplementary, Mr. Delorey.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I was wondering what other professionals is Hay River in need of, apart from a full-time doctor, to enable women to give birth in their home community? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Delorey. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Health and Social Services, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Mr. Speaker, it is quite a well known fact that a lot of young doctors who are graduating from medical schools now are not interested in obstetrics. They are not interested in delivering babies. So even in some of the communities that do have resident physicians, birthing is still a problem. To the best of my knowledge, if Hay River did have a qualified physician and also a physician with a specialty in being able to offer anaesthetic services, that is all that would be required. A GP with a specialty designation for anaesthetics is all that would be required in order to reinstate the service in Hay River for delivering babies. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Minister. Final supplementary, Mr. Delorey.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have done a bit of research in other jurisdictions in the Western Arctic with regard to their doctor situation. In Inuvik, they have a population of 3,500 and currently employ 5.5 doctors. In Fort Smith, they currently employ two permanent doctors with a population of 2,500. In Yellowknife, they employ 20 doctors with a population of 18,000. Mr. Speaker, 20 doctors in Yellowknife seems to be a pretty rich situation. Is there anything the Minister can do to supply Hay River with a doctor out of Yellowknife on a part-time basis or on a rotation basis that can enable Hay River women to stay and give birth in their own community? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Delorey. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Health and Social Services, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the specialists do travel to the communities, including Hay River, to provide specialty services. As far as redeploying physicians from Yellowknife to serve Hay River on a rotating basis, I do not know. We have just got up to 20 physicians and that is not a full complement for Yellowknife either. I think that those physicians work under contract to the Yellowknife Health and Social Services Board. I do not know if there would be any interest in providing that kind of service in Hay River. It is certainly a question we could ask, but I think that we have just recently alleviated the very serious shortage in Yellowknife as well.

I would say that 20 is not a full complement of physicians here yet. If they had a full complement of physicians, I should say, that may be something that could be posed to them as a question, but right now I do not think that the workforce here would facilitate that. We have to be creative. We have to look at all different kinds of options. The Member mentioned that there are physicians resident in other major communities and the CEO of the Hay River board informs me that it is not a money issue. It is just trying to find a physician that matches the community and certainly there is a shortage Canada-wide, so we are doing our best to address that problem. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Minister. Item 6, oral questions. The honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question goes as well to the Minister responsible for Health and Social Services. In my Member's statement, I discussed the past where the government put into practice zero tolerance for its staff at drug and alcohol centres. I would like to know is that practice still in place here in the Northwest Territories? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Madam Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my information tells me that indeed the Member is correct. In the early '90s, it was the policy of the department that drug and alcohol workers not drink or consume drugs. I do not know if that was called zero tolerance or it was some kind of a sobriety clause that was attached to their employment. In the mid-90s, responsibility for alcohol and drug workers was transferred to non-government agencies and so with that transfer did not come such a policy. So if we were to suggest such a thing, it would be up to the agencies who actually employ the drug and alcohol workers to implement it. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Minister. Supplementary, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think we could give our motion a little more bite if we went back to the groups and ask them to put this in place. We are challenging other government leaders to take up our stance on zero tolerance. Are there any plans to proceed to boards and request them to follow zero tolerance? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Health and Social Services, Mrs. Groenewegen.