Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as Members of the 16th Assembly, we are,
first and foremost, Northerners working together. As a government, we are moving forward with a plan of five strategic initiatives that are focussing and organizing our work and initiatives to meet the goals we share as an Assembly. Our plan is built around the 16th Assembly’s vision, Northerners
Working Together. It is responsive to the priorities that we have identified, most importantly it is focussed firmly on achieving the potential of our future
One of the key priorities under the 16th Legislative
Assembly’s strategic plan is healthy, educated people with a focus on prevention by promoting healthy choices and lifestyles and the role of personal and family responsibility.
In order to advance this goal, we need to continue to invest in prevention and promotion programs that promote the overall health and well-being of Northerners. We need to concentrate efforts and resources in early childhood development, early intervention and upstream prevention with a focus on population health.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to highlight some of our recent accomplishments and future directions aimed at furthering the priorities of the 16th Legislative Assembly.
The NWT Health and Social Services Action Plan, A Foundation for Change, sets out the strategic direction and actions required to improve the well-being of all residents of the Northwest Territories and aims to provide and promote affordable, effective and responsive health and social services.
Health and Social Services has several initiatives already underway within the Building our Future initiative.
We are expanding programming for children and youth through respite care in communities outside of Yellowknife. Respite care provides planned relief for caregivers, families and the people with disabilities they care for. Relief is necessary to decrease burnout and stress and allow caregivers to provide the best possible support and thereby the best quality of life for those with disabilities. This action focuses on improving outcomes and opportunities for children and youth.
Under encourage healthy choices and address addictions, we successfully launched our 2009 version of Drop the Pop to 38 schools across the Northwest Territories. This successful campaign encourages our children and youth to make healthy choices and promotes the Assembly’s goal of healthy, educated residents.
We will build on our partnerships with aboriginal organizations to establish culturally appropriate community treatment options for youth and adults dealing with addictions, such as on-the-land treatment programming. We are currently working to establish a child and family service delivery model that will be culturally appropriate and incorporate best practices. We will be looking to do a pilot project in a small community that will provide an alternative response for the delivery of social services and provide opportunities for a traditional community-driven response that is in the best interest of children and families.
This April we launched our oral health campaign. This campaign provides toothbrushes, toothpaste, floss, bibs, and education materials to schools and health centres in all communities. Our Lift the Lip campaign highlighted the importance of good dental hygiene for children.
Once again our campaign will encourage healthy choices and promote healthy, educated residents. As we all know, if we can encourage healthy choices in our youth, we will be able to prevent many of the issues we see in our current adult population.
We are working in partnership with the Coalition Against Family Violence to expand services to smaller communities and to reduce impacts by
supporting children who witness family violence. Through the Small Communities Homelessness Fund we are providing resources to small communities for the provision of services and emergency shelter for homeless persons. In addition, the Homelessness Assistance Fund provides emergency financial and travel support to individuals and families facing homelessness.
We have devoted extensive resources to training community-based staff from across the Territory in the Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training -- ASIST -- model of suicidal intervention. This is an important step in protecting the health and safety of our most at-risk people, especially our youth.
We are evaluating our Community Counselling Program to ensure that it meets the needs of our smaller and more remote communities. We’re committed to working with the communities to provide a service that is relevant and meaningful and assists community members to achieve their personal wellness goals.
We’re working with government and community partners to expand child and youth mental health programming. This is a strategic and preventive measure to increase protective factors and to reduce risk factors for future difficulties.
Through the Strengthening Continuum of Care for Seniors strategic action we have committed to supporting seniors by providing assistance and support for the construction and ongoing operation and maintenance of the Territorial Dementia Centre scheduled for completion this year. Once occupied, residents of this facility will be provided with a home-like environment that offers as much freedom as possible and reinforces a sense of belonging and independence.
We recently opened the Hay River Territorial Supported Living Campus. The campus will provide support for adults with special needs and disabilities and allow Northerners currently receiving services in the South to be closer to their families. The campus provides housing for up to 10 residents and two respite beds, which will give families caring for loved ones planned relief. There will also be a day program centre that will provide programs to both residents and clients from the surrounding area. This campus will provide residents with an opportunity for personal growth, life skills, and peer and social supports.
Earlier this week I was very pleased to announce a partnership with the City of Yellowknife and BHP Billiton to provide funding for the establishment of a day shelter for the homeless. This joint investment over three years will ensure that some of our most vulnerable citizens have access to a safe environment during the day and shelter from the elements, including washroom facilities. This initiative will further the Assembly’s goal of a
healthy, educated population focusing on vulnerable individuals.
While we’ve had many recent successes, this does not diminish the challenge faced by the NWT health and social services system. The cost of maintaining four hospitals and 19 health centres for a small population results in a very high per capita cost. We have a critical shortage of health care professionals, including nurses and social workers. We are heavily reliant on locum physicians and relief nurses.
Our current physician institutional-based model is extremely costly. Our social services are not well integrated and having eight regional boards of management means that our service delivery is not consistent across the system. Add to that the high risk lifestyle of many of our residents, an aging population, the rising cost of health care, and the rising burden of chronic diseases, and it becomes very clear that our current system as is, is not sustainable.
In order to ensure the ongoing sustainability of the NWT health and social services system we are focusing on initiatives aimed at providing affordable, effective, and appropriate services now and into the future.
The Foundation for Change Action Plan focuses on delivering the right services using the most appropriate service provider. We will fully implement a primary community care model utilizing all health care professionals to their full scope of practice. Through technology we will deliver services remotely and provide support to frontline staff in isolated communities, enhancing patient safety and care. We plan to look at all health and social services facilities in the NWT to ensure they are operating at maximum capacity and efficiency. Where they are not we will have to make decisions to ensure maximum efficiency.
We are also taking an inventory throughout the NWT of community health and social services capital needs. We will review existing governance structures to ensure that regional priorities are effectively communicated and reflected in the Health and Social Services strategic and business plans. To ensure accountability we will set performance benchmarks and targets that measure progress towards achieving our goals and monitor progress through quality assurance and performance monitoring. We will focus on services that will help to mitigate future costs; programs like promotion and prevention, chronic disease management, and enhancing continuing care to reduce costly long-term care and facility living.
To be effective, social programs will need to be better integrated, services to the clients will be seamless, and all social programs will be better linked to ensure the most appropriate services are provided to those individuals accessing the system.
We will roll out electronic health records and electronic medical records to reduce health care costs and improve quality of care. This means that a health professional with an Internet connection can access a patient’s health information any time or anywhere from all sites in the NWT, resulting in better information and faster results for the patient. Our new filmless X-ray system will allow health professionals in remote communities to examine X-rays and ultrasounds over a high-speed Internet connection. This means that we will no longer have to wait for X-rays to be sent by mail to have doctors review them. We can now upload them and have a doctor review the image in a more timely fashion. This new digital system will prevent the loss of film and reduce cost associated with producing hard copy film. This is an example of using the latest technology to provide a better service for the residents of the NWT in a more cost-effective manner.
The department is expanding its TeleSpeech Program, replacing 14 outdated telehealth units and adding 16 new units to schools and health centres. These units will ensure that residents, mainly children, will be able to access the speech language services they require in their communities. This is another positive example of how technology is being used to deliver services in our small communities.
Health and Social Services alone cannot ensure the future sustainability of our system. We will need broad support from all levels of government and community organizations. Individuals and families will need to accept personal responsibility for their overall health and well-being. We need to change behaviours today to ensure we meet our goal of healthy, educated people for the future.
I’d like to thank you for this opportunity to share with you some our recent and planned initiatives aimed at moving forward with the 16th Legislative
Assembly strategic plan.