The comments by other Members, what I heard today, are somewhat on the same line as my comments, so I’m not going to go too far into having similar types of comments here.
I would thank the Minister for putting together a very difficult budget and plan for the Northwest Territories. Certainly there are so many needs out there that sometimes we would want more for our regions because of the services that we see when we go to different parts of the Northwest Territories. Sometimes I would get into thinking, why not have that in the Sahtu region or that type of service in the Sahtu region. Mr. Chair, only once I started to understand the processes, the expenditures and the amount of services that are going to each of the regions I started to realize some of our services that we desperately want to see in the Sahtu, I think that will come into play in time.
I think the issue here is how to implement the dollars that you do have available for the Sahtu region in terms of implementing it in a way that makes sense to us in the Sahtu amongst our people in terms of how to take care of the elderly that want to stay home, that could be staying home. But sometimes medical services just because, or because the patient needs 24-hour care, that patient should be sent to Inuvik, Yellowknife or Behchoko where they have that type of service. Is it possible with this department to say, can we do something in the native ground that we would like to keep our elderly people home?
There are 3,650 seniors over 60 in the Northwest Territories. In the Sahtu, there are 241 who are 60 years and over. Is it possible in some way that we can provide some of our services with the existing funding that we have and propose to have in our region working with our health board to keep our seniors home as much as possible? I understand there is no type of facility right now. I haven’t seen any type of plans or indication of looking at a facility like the Aven Manor centre or the Behchoko Elders’ Facility in the plans for our region.
I am looking at creative ways that the department can look at how we keep our seniors home, with improving care, training, hiring on additional workers to have people in the communities. I am looking at places like the Aven Manor centre where we have people from our region in that centre. Certainly Aven Manor has done a good job in terms of providing care for them, but the elders that I spoke to, elders who have lived there and have gone on, their only wish was, it would be nice to have a place like this in the Sahtu. The late Paul Baton said that to me. We could have a place like this in the Sahtu. That is something I look forward to this department, to see if they can become creative and do what they can.
Mr. Chair, the hospitals and facilities review report came out. Another report came out. Again I am going to be questioning the Minister as to recommendations of the report and get feedback she’s gotten and what kind of consultation has happened in terms of the facilities and hospitals review.
Certainly I am going to still continue advocating that the Sahtu certainly would like to see a regional wellness health centre in our region. There are a lot of arguments for it. I will probably get good rationale why it is not happening from the department, but I would like to see somewhere that we do some serious planning, as other facilities have seen upgrades and renovations and new facilities are on the books to happen in Yellowknife or any other centres.
I was in the last government where I supported the Dementia Centre because there was a real need in the Northwest Territories. The department, previous colleagues talked about the need for a dementia centre and I agreed with them. I think that because the space that we have in the hospital here is filled we need a place in the Northwest Territories to have special care for these special people. I ask no more or no less for the Sahtu people in terms of having a regional wellness centre in our region. I won’t go further into details to why we need one in our region, but I am going to continue pushing for the Minister to go to bat for us at the Cabinet table to capital infrastructures with the senior
management to see if you can put something in the books for us. I know it takes a long time to get things on paper in the book, but I am asking. I am not too sure how to go, but I want to ask that from the Minister.
There are many other issues there that, Mr. Chair, I think the Minister needs our support in terms of working with the federal government on funding by the non-insured health benefits. I know our government through different discussions are having their struggles and their challenges dealing with the federal government in terms of money owed to us. I think, and I hope, that the Minister can come forward. How do we deal with this deficit that we have with the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs on the billing issue? Shame on them for trying to offload those on our department and our government. I look forward to if the Minister is ever going to come forward with the discussion paper, a paper maybe from her colleagues and the Cabinet, saying that this is how we are going to deal with the federal government issue, because we can no longer continue to carry a disputed number because that’s affecting us in our communities. That’s something that I look forward to from this Minister. In terms of her leadership, how do we deal with the federal government? Do we need to get the chiefs on side? Do we need to organize with the other aboriginal governments? I look forward to those and seeing if anything comes about in terms of how we resolve that.
Mr. Chair, the one issue that I would like to commend the Minister on is that she’s implemented some programs that I agree with in terms of how it’s going to impact our people in the Sahtu and the Northwest Territories. I think the Minister needs to look at how we support our small communities and health centres, upgrading our health centres, helping our aboriginal CHRs -- most of them are in my small communities -- in terms of the proper medical training. I’d like to see Colville Lake become a health centre. Right now it’s a health station. I’d like to see Colville Lake become a health centre and have more people in that community get some proper training, as we do with any other medical field in the Northwest Territories. I hope to see that Colville Lake gets some attention in terms of becoming a health centre, rather than just being labelled a health station.
I have some more questions for the Minister, but overall I’m pleased with what she’s doing. I think there’s room for some good discussions. Thank you.