All of my colleagues brought up a lot of good points. From our small communities we do have major problems with our health, with our doctor visits. It’s good to see in the opening comments, Ms. Minister, with the electronic health record or diagnostic imaging going into all four of my communities, which we really need. We’re having to remove people from the community to go get an X-ray.
Again, getting back to the doctors’ visits, the elders in my communities are being sent out to see the doctor and if they’re ill enough, they have to stay in the hospital. The last couple of weeks I had an elder pass away from pneumonia -- sent home too early. Trying to deal with that with the family members is really tough. In our small communities our elders never see a doctor sometimes for two or three months, if not longer. The health system in our ridings -- myself, Mr. Krutko -- is not up to par with Yellowknife where if you want to see a doctor, you make an appointment and you see him in the next couple of days. If it’s an emergency, you’ll get to see him within a couple hours. Back home, the nursing station will give you Tylenol and send you home. That’s not right.
Over the next couple of weeks I’m going to be bringing forward our elders facility in Ulukhaktok. I’m going to bring a motion into the House. My elders in Ulukhaktok want to take care of our own and we want to bring our elders home instead of having to send them to long-term care in Inuvik or Aklavik; both good facilities but they want to be close to the community and their families. A lot of little problems we’ve been having are elders with arthritis and stuff like that. I have an elder in Tuktoyaktuk who’s been having a lot of problems trying to get treatment, wanting to drive to Inuvik himself. Just the way he’s been treated in the community health centre, it’s not right. I really think this should be looked into.
In our community of Paulatuk, in our community visits, myself and the Minister heard many issues in regard to mental health workers, psychiatrist to be brought into the community, which we really need. The community said that loud and clear on our visit, so I hope something is being done with that.
The cancer screening, in my riding it’s either too late or you’re trying to prevent and -- how can I say
-- basically if you’re diagnosed with cancer in my riding, it’s just like getting a death penalty. You can prevent the cancer in regard to the treatment that...There is no treatment. I mean, it’s too late. You can’t catch it at the start. You’re really lucky if you do. The screening for cancer, there’s none. How many people could we have saved since I’ve been an MLA down here? How many people died with cancer in our communities? Something’s got to be done with that. I really hope that the Minister is willing to get more doctors, more locums or whoever, just to provide the service that’s required in the smaller communities, because we’re treated like second-class citizens sometimes in the smaller communities of Paulatuk and Sachs. Having to be sent out, it’s not right.
Just to close up, on the board reform, it’s not a good thing. I’m not going to be supporting that supplementary health. You might as well just get rid of it because we’re just wasting our time on it. April 1st isn’t go to go anyway. I’m not supportive of that.
Again, thanks for your time.