Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have one additional position under directorate. That is the enhancing emergency services policy position. There are three positions transferred from activity 200 and one deletion which is a transfer to activity 500. I am going to have to ask Mr. Elkin to explain that. There are three new positions as a result of internal reorganization. There were some reorganizations that happened in the department in the last fiscal year, then there are five deleted positions from internal reorganization and the net of that is one. So there are seven new additions, including transfer, and six deletions, so seven minus six is one. Thank you.

Was Mr. Elkin going to add something? Mr. Elkin.

We are on page 8-15, active positions, directorate, activity summary. Agreed?

Moving on to page 8-16, program delivery support, page 8-17, operations expenditure summary, program delivery support, activity summary, $32.264 million.

Hello?

Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I did want to ask a question relative to page 8-16 and 8-17. I think that’s where we are. The Minister mentioned in her opening remarks that the Diabetes Strategy is going to be piloted in this next budget year. I wonder if I could ask the Minister which two communities are going to pilot the Diabetes Strategy.

Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I indicated, I will be bringing forward more details of that strategy that is being completed. The two communities are not determined yet, but we are looking at one large community and one small community. We know that the growth of diabetes is very clear; there is a very clear trend that it’s moving from south to north. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for that answer. I’ll wait for the briefing, hopefully.

Under program delivery details on page 8-17, health and social services authorities, agency administration from 2009-2010 there’s no increase in those dollars. Could I get an explanation of what this $12.5 million is for? I’m sure the costs are going to increase so how does the Minister account for the fact that the funding to these authorities is not going to increase? I’ll leave it at that.

The overall block funding transfer to all of the authorities amounts to about $260 million out of the $313 million that the department is asking for under this budget. This portion here, $12.438 million, is strictly the

administration, the CEO and all of the administrators in the authorities. The program funding comes from different programs, whether it be hospital services or the THAF funding. There are different pockets of money that our authorities received under this programming.

Next on the list I have Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The one question I wanted to ask the Minister, and maybe register with the department officials here, is in terms of program delivery support. I know they are working very hard with our health boards in terms of having proper care in home care, home care for seniors, and persons with disabilities and community health nursing issues with our region. I would ask the Minister in terms of registering. It may not be the appropriate time, but in terms of looking at some shelters in our region and looking at the regional facility like other communities have. I know the indications from the Sahtu region was that a lot of the studies showed that people wanted to have their own people stay in their homes. If that’s the case and that’s still the case today, then I would ask that the Minister consider beefing up the training and resources for people to look after the elders in their own homes equivalent to almost with the other regions that have 24-hour facilities for the elders. Would she be able to look at that and see that’s an issue that she needs to work with our health boards in the Sahtu?

Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That is the direction the department has been working towards and that I will be continuing to do. In my opening statement I had indicated that we are partnering with the Dene Nation and Aurora College to train more people to work as home support workers and residential aid workers because we understand that there are needs for that. IRC is making a proposal to train licensed practical nurses. That’s under works. I also understand that the Dene Nation received separate funding to work on palliative care. There is lots of work being done to enhance community support in our communities so that we can, as much as possible, allow not only our elders and seniors but those who can live independently with assisted support.

The Minister has listed out some programs that could seem very beneficial to the people of the Northwest Territories. I wanted to speak specifically for the people in the Sahtu region in terms of where in the Sahtu and other communities that do not have a regional elders’ facility. In the Sahtu there is no regional elders facility. I’m afraid that somewhere with this type of planning, this type of going-forward initiatives, that

the region that’s most in need of support for elderly care in their communities would be the Sahtu. I’m hoping that through the discussions with the Dene Nation, other partners and agencies that the Minister has indicated that this emphasis is put on the Sahtu. If you look at other regions, they have regional elders facilities in their regions that would attract certainly members from that community to go there, because that’s the place that is needed for them there.

That’s one issue I have with this budget going forward, is making sure that the small communities such as I have in the Sahtu are given more emphasis on some of the services that are being taken for granted in other regions; that special care be taken by this Minister and this department.

In terms of program delivery, I look forward to the Minister, through her department, bringing forward some type of new initiatives on how to attract health profession workers in delivering alternative health methods in our communities. Right now we’re following one style of health care as the western model of health care. We seem to be locked in it and saying that this is the only way we can administrate, through prevention, treatment of the medical model in the Northwest Territories. I think Mr. Krutko has spoken about this earlier this week about looking at alternative health preventive medicine that should be looked at by this department here. So far I have not heard any type of indication as to the Minister saying we could look at different ways to prevent and treat our clients in the Northwest Territories. So far we’re stuck on the western model. They do have a reason. I do appreciate this model, but it’s not the only one we need to subscribe to. There must be other ways to look at our health care in terms of prevention, treatment, cures.

I want to ask this Minister if she’s willing to take a stand on how to take care of other issues that may seem more beneficial. Right now it seems to be that when we go to our health centres or our health station in Colville Lake, they seem to only administer drugs and pills. I think there are other ways that could be used but are not being supported by the health care in the Northwest Territories. There is a time and place for these medications, but I think sometimes they’re the easy way out to let people know that this is the only cure.

I’m thinking that through this process here, I hope that the Minister does bring some new initiatives in terms of how to bring other alternative health medicines into the Northwest Territories health care. That’s a big request to ask, but I think that’s a start. I think the chiropractors, for example, in the Northwest Territories should be under our health care system. They have lots of great benefits in terms of helping people, but we don’t seem to be

supporting that type of method of treatment or prevention.

As Mr. Krutko alluded to earlier in terms of traditional practices in social services or health care, we still don’t have enough emphasis put on practicing the communities’ traditional healing methods. It’s sort of what we preferred or do it on their own.

I know the Minister has made some great progress in the Aboriginal Wellness Program at Stanton Hospital with members of the elders across the Northwest Territories, and I applaud the department for doing that and starting it and setting it up and going forward. But I think it needs to be encouraged with our health boards in terms of having some dedicated dollars to look at methods of prevention or treatment in our health care system. These types of things I look forward to the Minister bringing forward in her budget. I’m not sure if that’s something that could be done through this process right now, but I’m looking forward to a discussion with her, through the various committees of this House and through discussions with the health boards, to see if this type of discussion can happen to clear the way for alternative healing and methods for our people in the small communities.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think there are two issues that the Member is raising. One has to do with capital planning and the second thing has to do with aboriginal wellness and traditional practices in delivering health care.

With respect to capital planning, the House made a decision that we will separate the main estimate budget from the capital planning budget, and we will be obviously coming back to the House with a capital plan in the next capital plan business cycle in the September budget session; or October.

With respect to the Sahtu, from what I see, the Sahtu Health and Social Services Authority being new, they’re very new but they’re very vibrant. They’ve spent lots of time in the last couple of years building up their human resource capacity. They have done a very good job recruiting and retaining doctors for a size that small. I have met with them a couple of months ago where they have a plan on their human resources and what sort of human resource capacity they want to have in every community, in their region.

Obviously the Sahtu authority is experiencing similar challenges as every other authority. They are trying to live within our economic circumstances. But it is a very well-prepared and capable board. I will undertake to ask the Sahtu authority to give us their capital requirements, including seniors complexes in the Sahtu. I understand that we don’t have one. We have a

wellness centre that runs day programming in Deline, but I think we do need to do a long-term plan that would allow Sahtu elders and people who need assistance to live in that area. The region has to decide where and how and what kind of shape that will be.

The second question with respect to the Aboriginal Wellness Program, I could advise the Member that I met with the elders that are overseeing the Aboriginal Wellness Program in Stanton. They are looking at how to bring some of the traditional practices into our health care delivery system. For now they were mostly interested in talking to me about improving food and other services in Stanton, because they really felt for elders and aboriginal people who come to be cared for at the hospital, those are pretty much the basic things that they want to look at. They’re doing a lot of work and I’ve encouraged them and I told them that I am looking forward to what they are working on and what recommendations they will make.

I just want to also lastly add that we do have a pilot project in Fort Simpson. It’s the second year of a three-year project. We’re spending $800,000 and it’s in partnership with the Dene Nation to look at the aboriginal way of healing and health care delivery system. We are looking to see what we can learn from that and how they can apply to other areas. There are lots of aboriginal governments, especially IRC, who are very successful at obtaining federal funds to do some really interesting work. I just want to assure the Member, who I know is very interested in this area, we worked together in the Standing Committee on Social Programs on this issue and I am still committed to making some difference in that area.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Under this section, under program delivery detail, it highlights the chief medical health officer. I just had a question as to credentials going forward. It’s not reflective of the current person that was just appointed, but it was brought to my attention recently that to become the NWT chief medical health officer you don’t require any other qualification other than being a doctor at present. In comparison, other places across Canada require a master’s degree in public health and/or some community health medicine like a post-graduate in community health medicine.

The issue really is moving towards a higher standard of qualifications. Because the present person...I don’t know if this person has this or not, but are we moving in that direction? Is the Minister supportive of our present candidate in the chief medical health position? Are they working with that

person to gain those types of qualification? Because being the top doctor of the land is a specialized area and people depend on the leadership in this role. I’d like to hear from the Minister on that.