This is, I think, a fairly simple problem and can be resolved fairly simply, but it has... The policy is in the way. It is kind of an odd situation, because, previously, there were people in these homes, they remained in the homes until their very last days. Health had some involvement in there. Home care was providing some service directly in these facilities and that is all that we are asking for, nothing greater than what was already there, nothing greater than what was there prior to the withdrawal of the program by the Department of Health and Social Services. We are not asking to bring people back into the community that would require the department to have a nurse on full time, anything like that. There is nothing more than what was already there. The people in Fort Resolution fail to see or understand how could something that has worked without any problem whatsoever no longer work because of something that happened on paper, a policy change. The same people, the same service people will be there, they will sit in there and reactivate the home.

Essentially what is happening is there are no seniors in that home living there, so the seniors that do come in don’t even feel like it is their home. Even if they come from next door and it is a satellite unit, they don’t feel like the facility belongs to them. When the four people were actually living in there, the community felt like that facility belonged to them, the elders, the seniors, and it was a very good feeling to go in there. There was lots of activity, so to speak, and now it has kind of dwindled away to nothing more than a place for the select few elders that are eligible to go in there and have a lunch.

I want to go to the extreme end; I just want the department to see a common, sensible approach to this and say we can provide a limited amount of service, maybe a little bit of additional service, a little bit of extra capital to accommodate the residents that would live there. I am trying to get the department to see that this is a policy-driven

decision that has caused problems in the small communities or the facilities.

I know that a place shut down in Deline and I know that they are targeting Joe Greenland in Aklavik, and Fort Resolution was shut down as well. What I am saying is, let’s get something in between with support. Discuss it with the community, find a way to bring people back and let’s just let people live there and provide support to them, not necessarily 24 hour nursing care.