Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the Member continues to raise, on behalf of his constituents, the very serious issues about health care and how they're provided in his region and communities. He's spoken about that passionately on a number of occasions. The sad fact is that we still do have a lot of areas and communities that are remote, that are serviced only by visiting physicians, that can only have people accessing health care in other regions or other communities by medevac services or scheduled flights out and have to be away from their homes and communities for days, if not weeks at a time on some occasions. It's something we continue to try to deal with, but unfortunately in our fiscal situation that we're in, we're going to have to take small, incremental steps in providing an improved level of care for residents.
I can speak from experience when I had my previous life, when I traveled to a lot of the communities and seeing the types of facilities they had back then when I traveled to some of these smaller communities as an employee with the Department of Public Works and Services, and have to service a generator in the health centre, for example. A lot of these places were the old federal buildings that were initially built. I think we managed to outgrow that and put new facilities in communities. That addresses one piece of it, but there's still other pieces.
Then the nursing shortage comes into play as to how we can adequately staff those levels of nurses in those communities. We've done so by initially working with authorities around agency nurses, and that, in fact, was taken on so well that it became sort of the main process of staffing more remote facilities. That's why, as I've stated earlier talking about the community health nurse development program, we're working now taking the new graduates going to a more intensive level of training so that we can put our nurses, long-term residents of the North, into those communities so that we won't have the in and out, back and forth from different nursing staff that are unfamiliar with the people.
One thing we have to recognize, even though nurses can go into communities, they may be new, but the people there have been there for a while and the files are there, so new staff can go into the health centre and would know
what visits happened when, what were the issues. However, it doesn't make the people any more comfortable when they do go to a person. It's like a new person again; I have to tell my story all over again scenario. That is something we're going to continue to work on improving.
The area of medevac flights, it is something that we continue to wrestle with. The high cost of providing the service, getting flights in. Weather is always an issue in the North, the small communities, trying to get people, and we've heard it before, get people from the health centre to the airport in a safe manner. That is something we continue to try to improve on. I think, for the most part, again, I go back to my personal experience, seeing what was available back quite a number of years ago. Of course, I'm dating myself, I guess, but the level of service provided at that time; in some cases, initially, people were taken out in the back of pickup trucks. I think we've gone beyond that now, but there's still room for improvement on that side of it.
The issue of a long-term care facility. Again, I can go back from some of my own experience. The community of Deline, I recall, when the Department of Health and Social Services built the facility there, unfortunately there was an incident occurred as soon as the place was available for occupancy and that was viewed by others in that community as not a very good situation. Hence, for years that facility sat empty because people would not move into that long-term care facility. Again, I go from experience, even in my own community, one of the larger ones in the territory, we have a seniors' facility but from a person from their own home into a seniors' facility -- term it what we call it -- it is not seen as a good thing by a senior; they feel there is loss of some independence. That's something we've all got to work with in trying to ensure that these areas, although we may call them seniors' facilities, are still fairly independent, it all depends on a level we go at. Of course, the higher the level we are, the more expensive it would get for providing that service.
I understand a commitment was made to continue to work with the Member as well as the Sahtu on taking a look at what would be required, the level and the need for that service, so that commitment will stand as we proceed forward.
The issue of the clinics in Yellowknife and the consolidation; in fact, it has been around for quite some time. As a Member of previous Assemblies, I recall when all the clinics were private here in Yellowknife, and that was not seen as a very efficient process, as well. At that point, the step was taken to begin the consolidation process and now we're getting to the final stages of that. Instead of having clinics in older facilities around the city, coming under one roof where we can provide an enhanced level of service and care. Again, that goes back in the face of the Members from smaller communities where you get a doctor coming for three days, versus an updated modern facility.
We do have to look at the volumes that the larger centres face when it comes to people in those communities. That's something where we try to come up with a balance within the department, the needs assessments of those communities and the level of service we can provide.
The homelessness side of the equation is something that, again, as a government we've made the steps now to incorporate it into the actual business plan. It's now going to become a permanent program, not on a supplementary process where we have to come on a yearly basis at a certain time of year to try to get the money to cover that. We've done that. In fact, we've enhanced it to deal with small communities so that a process is in place so communities outside of larger centres can access those funds. It's not a large pool of funds. We've identified $200,000 as a part of our budget process that would see the enhanced level. We realize that it's going to have to be application-based and communities are going to have to work together to try to come up with a best mix at this stage, but it is something that we've finally made the necessary steps in recognizing and making it a permanent part of our fixed budget process.
Of course, the drug and alcohol program is something that we're always challenged with in the Northwest Territories because of our high incidence of alcohol and drug abuse. The issue is, even on the homelessness side, as the Member stated about our young children needing an emergency place or a safe house on weekends, and it is our duty as a government to try to make sure we have the appropriate level of facilities to help people out. But at the same time, I'll go back to what a Member said earlier, is choices we make as individuals in the community. Those choices we make have a profound impact on our community. It can have one on a positive side or a negative side and, unfortunately, on the Health and Social Services' side, we come into the equation on the negative side when we talk about child apprehension, we talk about family abuse and violence. Those things we end up dealing with and families being pulled apart. We have to get, as I mentioned earlier, on the prevention side of the equation to try to get to the younger generation, and, as well, learning from our elders on how we raise our families, what choices we make, and those impacts would have on our children. Those are so critical.
I've been a Member of the Legislative Assembly for three terms. When it comes to those types of choices and taking personal responsibility, a very sensitive, touchy issue that people don't like to be told what needs to be done and how they should raise their families. But if we don't change the way we do things in the Northwest Territories and we continue to go to government in the sense that the government will fix the problem; that will be an ever-increasing problem.
The government, as I've said, cannot be the parents. We can provide the necessary tools for families to help them through, and I think that's where we should be focussing on, is giving the tools to families to make the right decisions to help them through troubled times. But in fact, for us to stand up and become parents of children, as I was asked and sadly had to recognize that fact growing up in a community and seeing families where a pregnant mother was involved with the department before a child was born and the child then being involved in the system from day one right until they're 17, 18 years old. The question was put to me about what difference did we really make in that person's life. Sometimes you really have to dig deep to see where we made a positive lasting impact, and those are the challenges we face today, very serious questions of how we deliver the programs. Ultimately, we're going to be there to cover those in need, but we need to turn this around to be there for families to
help them make the right choices at the right time so that we don't have to go through family break-up, we don't have to go through the child apprehension processes we're involved with now. But those are there, we're going to have to be there to step up to the plate, but we're going to be challenged I think. I would say as leaders, not only in this Assembly but leaders in our communities, we have to send the message to our communities and our families that choices they make can have a lasting impact on family lives. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.