Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Yakeleya.

Mr. Chairman, the item on Patient Wait Time Guarantees Trust for this year, I

wanted to follow up to Mr. Jacobson’s comments to the early preventative diagnosis of illness in our communities, such as cancer. Take note that it’s on the increase and some of our elderly people, people who go into our health centres and often are not quite yet diagnosed with an illness, that could be potentially dangerous or fatal in the future. Sometimes they’re given different types of prescriptions and told to go home until later on. When they do go back for further diagnosis or a family member decides to do something to get them to Stanton here, they’re diagnosed with a more serious condition of an illness.

I wanted to know if this funding that the Minister has indicated here goes towards some type of early detection in terms of Patient Wait Time Guarantee. Is that something that she’s looking at in terms of how we get our elderly people more quickly serviced in terms of seeing if there’s a more serious illness when they go to the health centres? Such as cancer.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is a three-year funding program that we’re receiving from the federal government for the total of $4.6 million. This is year three and this year we proposed to spend $1.068 million on CHN development, and $600,000 on nurse practitioners, and $225,000 on DI/PACS for the diagnostic imaging and pictures, picture archiving system that I think I mentioned in my opening statement. It would allow different health clinics to send images back and forth. So that’s really using money for human resources and some of the equipment necessary to enhance access to our residents.

Thank you, Minister. I guess what I’m looking at is in terms of more of the smaller, isolated health stations that have limited resources to really do a proper diagnosis of a patient when they come from the communities into the health centres. That sometimes for no fault of their own the hard-working health staff in their small communities do the best they can with the resources they have. So are we giving them additional resources that could get a quicker diagnosis of diabetes, cancer and other issues that could be diagnosed faster? There are a number of things that I could say to support my argument. There are a number of incidents I could say to support my comments here. I guess I’m looking for some support in the health centres other than finding out later that certain patients are coming into Stanton or the Inuvik Regional Health Board or to Edmonton, only to find out that they had cancer there or cancer had developed three or four months back. So I’m just looking for a good answer from

the Minister in terms of how we are helping our people in our communities that are only told later on that possibly something could have been done to detect an early diagnosis of cancer or some other terminal illness.

I’d like to just advise the Member and the House that I understand when the Members say that our communities, especially small communities, are having to go without a lot of services that are available in major centres. I accept that; I understand that; and we have to continue to work to enhance those services. There’s no argument from me there. It’s really hard to have everything. In our smaller communities we just don’t have the same level of service.

Having said that, I think I read last week that our residents come into contact with health care providers about 28,000 times a year. We don’t hear, thankfully, many of them go without any incidents. But I hear from people all over the Territories, especially from small communities, that early detection might have made a difference in their outcome. Now, I hear this from bigger communities as well, because I think when Members of our family are struck with something like cancer, families and everybody wants to know what we could have done to prevent that, or would an early detection have saved this person from an outcome that could be sometimes fatal.

I think that’s a constant challenge that the health care system and health care providers have to work under. Our nurses in our small communities are trained and provide support and a lot more services than a nurse in any big centre would provide. Our CHNs or nurse practitioners or nurse-in-charge are constantly trained and supported and constantly in touch with doctors or other people that they need help with, in Yellowknife or other places. I think we have to take every one of these cases seriously and when I get these inquiries in my office, I ask the officials to look at them individually and see if we can review the file to make sure that we constantly work on our system to improve that.

I certainly wanted to say to the Minister that she certainly has been responsive to some of the issues that I have been dealing with in my life or in my constituents’ lives. She has been very helpful in terms of how we get to some of the issues. I want to say that in our smaller communities it is a reality for us that when we go back, we are stopped by certain members in our communities and told, or given a call, or when we go visit, that certain things in the communities for the hospital for early detection sometimes is not taken too seriously. There’s a number of cases I could give to the Minister and that’s why I’m asking these questions here. Is there any type of

community guarantee wait time? I know every case. Sometimes I like to look at it as an isolated case, but some things have been happening for too long and too far in between in terms of having our people come into some of the centres here that need to look at some of their illnesses. So I guess in that sense that’s why I’m asking these questions here. I’m hoping to see something that will make a difference in some of our people’s lives. Working with our health boards, give them resources. Look at Colville Lake with 135 people and the few dogs that Bern Brown has in terms of the population here. Colville Lake in this day and age with their health centre, there’s a case that I don’t want to say right now, but it’s not as rosy out there as it may seem. It’s actually quite sorry to say that in this day and age, with the modern type of equipment, that Colville Lake is still operating their health centre in the ‘30s and ‘40s. This is why I’m asking these specific questions. I haven’t yet seen much of an improvement, since I became an MLA, to the services in Colville Lake. That’s only one community. That’s why I’m asking these questions here. I know the Minister is trying hard, but I’d like her to try harder.

I understand. I think the Member is asking if we have a policy that says no matter where you live in the Territories, you don’t have to wait for so long to see so and so. That’s not part of our policy. We don’t have a policy that says that. The Wait Time Reduction Trust and Patient Wait Times Guarantee Trust is the language of the federal government. That’s the program that they have set up to fund us, and we are accessing those funds and we’re using those monies to enhance community capacity by putting more resources into CHNs and nurse practitioners.

I take the Member’s point very seriously, that we do need to give more confidence to people in our small communities, that they are looked after and that when they go in and talk to the staff about their conditions, that they’re taken seriously and that all of the processes for diagnoses and detection are followed through. I take that point and I will continue to work hard on that with the officials. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Lee. Noting the clock, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to move that we report progress.

---Carried

Thank you, Minister Lee and your witnesses. I will now ask the Sergeant-at-Arms to escort the witnesses out of the Chamber. I will now rise and report progress.

Mr. Speaker, your committee has been considering Tabled Document 11-16(3), NWT Main Estimates 2009-2010, and would like to report progress. Mr. Speaker, I move that the report of Committee of the Whole be concurred with.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Do we have a seconder for the motion? The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.

---Carried

Item 23, third reading of bills. Madam Clerk, item 24, orders of the day.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until Wednesday, February 11, 2009, at 1:30 p.m.

---ADJOURNMENT

The House adjourned at 6:04 p.m.