Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.

Today I’d like to welcome Ms. Cece McCauley, Ms. Mary Ann Ross, and Ms. Ethel-Jean Gruben to the House.

Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

I would like to make a special recognition of Cece McCauley here today. On days when Member’s think I’m giving them a hard time, I’d just like them to think about what their life would be like if Cece was here.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. I’d like to welcome everyone in the gallery today. I hope you’re enjoying the proceedings. It’s always nice to have an audience in here. Item 6, acknowledgements. Item 7, oral questions. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Premier and they’re in follow-up to my Member’s statement on gender-based analysis. I was wondering if the Premier could tell me the status of gender-based analysis within the GNWT, specifically if that policy is currently being developed.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Member for that question. The gender-based analysis process is underway. We are working within Executive to come up with a position paper and hopefully have that out sometime during the spring.

I know there are a number of organizations out there that have already done a significant amount of research on gender-based analysis. I was wondering if the team currently working on the gender-based analysis, if the Premier or his staff have directed them to get in touch with individuals who are currently working on gender-based analysis like the Status of Women.

Our process is first to get a position paper developed. We have from within the Executive branch, as well as Human Resources and a women’s advisor unit within the Executive helping us put this together and working on some training materials as well.

Thank you, Mr. Premier. I was wondering if you could give me a bit of a timeline on when you think we might be able to see something on gender-based analysis within the GNWT.

As I had said earlier, we are hoping to have a position paper developed by this spring, working on training documents and a training schedule for implementation during this upcoming fiscal year. I’ll have to get back to the department as to further timing. I can pass that information on to Members.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Final supplementary, Mr. Abernethy. Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe that the department and the staff in the system did provide assistance in this regard. I do recall that there were some hiccups in the process, but I just cannot recall all the details. I will undertake to review that file again and work with the Member to see if there’s anything to iron out there. As I recall, I do believe that both parties of the procedure were provided with support.

I’m really grateful that the Minister acknowledged that there were hiccups and I guess that’s really what the point is here today, to talk about trying to find ways for clear policies from start to finish. It’s not about focusing blame, rather about trying to find new ways to do business better for our loved ones.

I’ll take the Minister up on her offer, but I’ll ask if she will also investigate this problem from the point of view of developing both a policy and strategy so that when we have Northerners who want to donate organs, whether it’s through the living organ transplant process or if that’s one of their last

wishes, that the Department of Health and Social Services will come up with a clear policy and make sure it’s publicized so people know how to access the process and get through it during that stressful time.

When I said hiccups I believe it might have had to do with because in our system delivery there are people who receive benefits through insured health services or their employers. I think in this situation we did eventually provide financial support for medical travel and all the other related support, so I will look into that to see how it worked out.

This is not something, organ transplant is not something that’s done regularly or on a frequent basis in the Territories. We do them when we can, but most of our organ donors or transplants are done in southern jurisdictions. I’m not sure if there’s a volume of work to do a policy work on that, but I will undertake to see, review this file that the Member is referring to and get back to the Member.

I’ll take the Minister up on that commitment as well. I guess the problem really goes down to the fact that we had a doctor’s letter suggesting that they needed a family member for the escort. They were denied initially on that. They were denied about staying in Edmonton because they had follow-up care. Then, furthermore, they had to justify why, when you cut them in half and take out a kidney, that they had to stay there a couple days to be able to go for a follow-up. That didn’t need to be explained. I think a clear, simple policy understanding the complexity of this, as well as a bit of flexibility now and that we don’t have to review every single one of these, would help us a long way. Clearly, could I get a commitment on the record here from the Minister that she’ll investigate this problem, which she has already said she’ll do, but in light of the fact that there’s no clear policy in a supportive context would she work to develop a strategy that does so?

I think it’s important to point out that the GNWT has very comprehensive and generous programming on medical escorts. We do run into problems where there’s some question about whether somebody needs an escort for medical reasons. We provide medical escort service to somebody who is older than 60. It’s there. I do believe that at the end of the day for this particular situation we did provide medical travel escort in that regard. I think there was a question about paying for accommodation and per diem or something like that. I will look into that. But we do have, if they qualify for medical escort, they would have been provided for that, and I believe they were.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Final supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wasn’t going to go to this level of detail, but the doctor who signed the necessary letter to recommend that the person goes and gives the kidney stated the name in the letter saying this is the medical escort they require, which happened to be their spouse. That spouse was denied even though it was either the number one or number two doctor in the Northwest Territories, but they were still denied on their first recommendation. They were denied their accommodation, secondly, and their per diems. Those are the complexities. I didn’t want to go into that detail. I’m just saying to the Minister, would she agree to take some strategic point of view to say how can we set up a strategy and go forward with a policy that has enough framework that we can work through these problems so we don’t have to bring them here?

My point is that we would provide a medical escort to that sort of situation and we do in other situations as well. In this case, the problem was with who was paying for the medical escort. We have residents in the North who are eligible to get coverage from elsewhere, whether it’s through NIHB or if they have another employer, spouse employer who has benefits, they have to go through that first before we would pay for it. I believe that was the issue. That was sorted out. I will confirm that with the Member.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.