Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to speak about Foundation for Change a bit. I know that the Minister brought it up in her opening comments and she’s absolutely correct that it did go to committee. One of the biggest changes for me in the Foundation for Change was looking at community nursing. It’s been something especially high on my agenda for the community of Wrigley. I look forward to seeing that change. I know that it took a long while to get to this stage, lots of barriers to overcome, including return of policing to Wrigley was part of the equation and with the help of my colleagues we are able to at least have some manageability about that. So with the Foundation for Change it’s not only Wrigley, there will be hopefully some increased services. I’ve got six small communities in my riding and we do have aging populations out there and I’d certainly like to see increased care for our residents in all our communities. So I certainly support the planning around the Foundation for Change document, because it does include some resources here in our main estimates.
As well, I just wanted to also bring up that residents continue to be concerned about language, and cultural training should continue to be part of any new staff or even for our long-term staff, at least every couple of years should be at least mandatory training, because our elders are going there and I keep telling people that their language is limited in English and culturally we often say yes. When a nurse or doctor is saying “is everything okay,” they’ll say “yes” or else, “do you want to take these pills,” they’ll say “yes,” because they’re trying to be nice, but they’re not really understanding what’s going on when, in reality, after they leave they’re telling people that they didn’t have an adequate checkup or adequate care, that they were given Tylenol and were turned away. So those are some of the things that I think we must continue to do in the health care system, is to ensure that our elders and our non English-speaking people have the best care available as well, and to make sure that they understand the process and that they understand the system and the technicalities of what’s being taught to them.
Along with language, of course, is the medical terminology training that’s required for our dedicated staff that are translators and interpreters in our health centres and in our hospitals. So that’s continually got to be part of the training system, I believe, Mr. Chair.
A couple of my colleagues spoke about cancer rates and it’s continually a concern and in my communities we’ve got to find a way to address it and see is there a root cause that is going on with increasing cancer rates. There are people in my communities, too, who have lots of people and elders dying recently, and mostly of cancer. I have been looking at doing a Member’s statement later on this week about that. With concerned community members, they do believe there may be a trend. If there is a trend, then there must be a way in our system to help monitor that or confirm it and see if, indeed, there is a root cause. Lots of people are concerned, too, that the root cause may be from many years ago, an incident or chemical; or is it current? That is something that we have to look at and not be afraid of looking at it, Mr. Chairman. We have to have the courage and conviction as a government to see if there is a real trend out there, if there is a real root cause. We will have a real good look at it and not just accept the fact that cancer happens. Sometimes it can be prevented. We know it can be prevented. Then we must have a real good look at it. Those are some of the emerging issues that are coming from my communities. The department has some huge challenges in terms of finding funding and getting their fair share of funding from our government for programs and services that they do deliver.
I think that, despite the forced growth, it is kind of like it has to be done, but I am sure it can be monitored. But at the same time, reduction of any programs and services, especially in the health field, is going to have to be monitored, because we don’t want our people affected and not having our services or the ability to travel. They certainly need that, Mr. Chairman.
That concludes my comments on the opening comments of the Minister. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.