Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, in the Northwest Territories Health Status Report, there is quite a bit of information about the different types of cancer that do occur. It has not been the practice of the department to give this information out by region because of the protection of privacy due to the small numbers in the communities. It has not been the practice of the department to give information out by community. If there was a specific community the Member is interested in, but just to put out a wholesale report of every community and the incidents of cancer, I think that would be difficult.

This document is actually quite comprehensive in terms of the various types of cancer. I might refer the Member to it. As well, we could give Northwest Territories up-to-date stats for different types of cancer under the cancer registry program that is within the department.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, another incident that happened in Fort McPherson has to do with the disease we talked about, tuberculosis. There has been a case in Fort McPherson where a teacher contracted the disease and is now hospitalized in Edmonton.

I would like to ask the Minister again, are you aware of this case in Fort McPherson? Is there an increase in tuberculosis? In Fort McPherson, it was a teacher who had the disease. There was concern by the public with their children being in the school. I would like to ask the Minister, are you aware of this incident?

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, yes, we are aware of this case of tuberculosis. In response to it, there was a screening of all the contacts in Fort McPherson. As a result of that, 15 people did test positive for exposure to the TB germ, of which one case is suspected of being active. Yes, the department is aware of that case and has taken very aggressive and proactive measures to address the spread of that disease.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I requested the department keep me informed. I have not received anything for some time. I am just wondering if there is an ongoing process to do a review or see if there are anymore cases. Do you continue to test after a period of time? What is the process that is used, especially in cases like tuberculosis? It is pretty contagious, especially when you are dealing with a lot of people. A lot of people are concerned because there have been a couple of cases now. What is the process to continue to monitor and keep the community and the public informed?

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the department is working closely with the Inuvik board to coordinate this investigation and to lend expertise to the board. The Inuvik board has assigned extra resources for TB control, an additional nursing position has been identified to assist the community, and an x-ray technician will be travelling to Fort McPherson to expedite the screening process. As part of the screening process, there were over 300 residents involved since March 2000. This was completed on June 9, 2000.

We have also undertaken a public awareness campaign to educate the public and encourage those at risk to be screened. It is being carried by the local media, as well, to inform people of the necessity to be tested. There has been quite a comprehensive response to this problem in the community of Fort McPherson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I mentioned TB was something we thought was gone, but it seems like it is slowly coming back and people are concerned because of the major outbreaks in the past. Many people are very reluctant to get tested because of the horror stories they heard in the past, where people were taken away and never came back.

Has the department done any research and surveys? Nowadays, with tuberculosis, there are different strains out there now which are pretty brutal, especially the ones over in Asia and other countries in the world. This type of strain of tuberculosis could wipe out a lot of our communities. What is the department doing to monitor if there have been any increases? Also, what kind of pubic awareness campaign is out there to ensure that we are taking this seriously and tests are being done on people?

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Tuberculosis is a reportable communicable disease. It is good news that the number of reported tuberculosis cases has decreased from 1995 to 1998 and this was a pattern that held for both men and women. We do know that. I cannot remember what the other part of the Member's question was.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Krutko.

I believe it was a question of public awareness because there are now stronger strains of tuberculosis, especially in Asia, that could come to North America. What are we doing to deal with dangerous diseases that are out there, such as tuberculosis?

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There is no specific public awareness campaign that has been undertaken in specific reference to tuberculosis, but health care providers and community health nurses are aware of the risks and some of the indicators that contribute to the spread of tuberculosis at the community level. They would be the means by which people would become informed of the risks and some of the symptoms to be watching for in relation to tuberculosis.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Krutko.

The reason I raise this concern is because I believe that we are sort of relaxing our awareness of the disease and also because of this situation in Fort McPherson. A lady who has had it is now in a coma in Edmonton. She made attempts to go to the health centre for almost a year and the only way that they finally caught it was because she was bedridden and they had to practically carry her to the hospital before they did something. She taught at the school as a teacher. How far do you have to go before we take all diseases seriously?

We heard in the communities about cancer, where people are told, they have an ulcer or they have this or that. Now look at doctors reporting in Aklavik that there is a definite connection to this virus, where a lot of people took it for granted that it was gas or an ulcer or whatever. There is actually a virus out there that causes stomach cancer. These instances have been happening and I have heard a lot of them. For myself, I feel that we have to do more in regard to public awareness but we also have to do more for prevention and, also, make us aware. We are not immune. We live in a global environment that these diseases could be carried from one country to another person in another country within a day, or two days, at the most. You can travel from one end of the world to the other end of the world not knowing that you have these diseases. We are not immune to it in the North.

We have to do more and take more preventative steps to ensure that we treat all ailments as serious in the context that we could have major outbreaks in the future because of these different ailments. Just in regard to the case in Fort McPherson, that is where there has been a lot of concerns raised because of how it came about and who knows what the long-term implications are. You could be negative one day and positive the next. You do not know how long it takes, especially with children. We do not know what the effects on those children are. Can the Minister tell me what is being done to ensure that we are taking preventative measures, especially when it comes to communicable diseases?

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I agree with the Member that if we do begin to see an increase of incidences arise in the statistics in something such as tuberculosis, that we would need to undertake more public awareness. I agree with the Member in general that we do have a responsibility as a department to keep people informed of these preventable diseases.

In relation to the specific incident that he refers to, it is difficult to speak to a single incident of something like tuberculosis and why the diagnosis was missed. I guess in a perfect world these things would not happen, but it is unfortunate. The community has had to deal with the results of that. I do agree with the Member that we could be doing more in terms of public awareness. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. General comments. We are page 6-10, Department of Health and Social Services, corporate services, operations expense, total operations expense, $24,462,000. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In regards to the concern raised about disabled persons, I have heard concerns especially from people within the community of Aklavik, who live on their own and they feel that they are being overlooked when it comes to their health care. They do not have access to the health centre where they have to find their own rides. There are no disabled vehicles in the communities. There is also the concern that people have different types of disabilities. It could be physical, mental or emotional, yet they feel that they are not taken seriously. They go to the health centre time and time again. As for providing the health services in a lot of our small communities, we as a government are doing very little to make life better for these people, especially accessibility to our health centres and also the community living for these people.

In regard to the community of Aklavik, we had a meeting with our MP, Ethel Blondin-Andrew. During this meeting, it was brought up that there was no vehicle for the community of Aklavik for the health centre for the nurses or the doctors to even get around to do community visits where these people are disabled and they cannot get out or get to the health centres. They live in our communities. In most isolated communities, you do see vehicles for the health centres and for the nurses to be able get around and carry out services.

You have an elders' facility in Aklavik. It is a level two or three facility, yet they do not have a vehicle to transport elders to the airport or the health centre. Why is it that most communities have transportation available for the disabled and the elderly, yet in this community, which is not on the road system, it is an isolated community? They used to have a vehicle, but for some reason it was taken away. For seniors to get to a doctor, a lot of them have a hard time getting into a vehicle because it is not equipped to deal with the elderly or the disabled people in wheelchairs. Yet, we have a level three health centre in Aklavik which is run by this government. That is an example of us not doing all we can to assist the elderly, the disabled and the service providers in our communities.

That is the frustration of trying to be a doctor and you are having to wait on patients. I was pretty surprised to hear that. What can the department do about that? If anything, why do we have these facilities without transportation available for them to serve the residents or people in these facilities? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. I would just like to remind Members that we are on detail. Keep some of these comments to the topic that we are on. The topic we are dealing with may be better under community health programs. Mr. Krutko.