Can the Minister advise me if these clients have been notified that they are going to receive repairs from the Housing Corporation? Thank you.

All successful and unsuccessful applicants have been notified at this point whether they were accepted or not. Thank you.

Can the Minister advise me at what stage these projects currently are? Like by stage, I’m referring to whether the drawing or the materials stage or labour contract stage, just what stage in general. Thank you.

I don’t have the information available, but I will gather the information and forward it on to the Member. Thank you.

Final supplementary, Mr. Beaulieu.

Can the Minister direct his delivery staff to work with me this summer to keep me in the loop, so I can help deal with some of the concerns related to the project and deal with the issues before they become unmanageable, hopefully? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I will ask the staff if they will contact the Member every so often and if there is some pending applications, then maybe he would be able to assist with some of those. And, myself, I will keep in close contact with the Member and keep him updated on the activity throughout the summer. Thank you.

Thank you. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I did hear about the situation that the Member is describing and we are investigating that. Thank you.

I would like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services how often major breaches of privacy happen with her department and the health authorities across the Northwest Territories that don’t hit the newspaper or the media. Thank you.

As I indicated in the House, every health authority, every health profession, professionals have a very strict protocol on patient records and medical information and they are to follow those protocols. When there are situations like this as sometimes does happen, then you have to investigate and work with the Privacy Commissioner to make sure those breaches don’t happen again and we are doing that with the latest information. Thank you.

In response to my colleague Mr. Yakeleya on Tuesday, the Minister stated that a policy already exists or is in place to protect the privacy of patients with confidential medical records. I’d like to ask the Minister if she’s willing to share that policy with us and, if there is such a policy, why these breaches are taking place. Thank you.

I’d be happy to share that. We know that policies exist, but it’s the people and machines that implement those policies and procedures. The latest information is that the information was faxed from an Alberta facility and our Privacy Commissioner is in touch with her counterpart to follow up on the details of this. Details are not clear at the moment, but we are following up on that as we take these issues very seriously. Thank you.

Final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as if it’s not bad enough that the information is getting out there, the lady that received some of these confidential medical records here in Yellowknife had, in fact, phoned the Stanton Territorial Hospital and told them that she had received this information. She never heard back from the hospital. I’d like to ask the Minister, if she’s going to take a look at this, you know, are people going to be responsible for not getting back to this woman and not telling her what she should do with these confidential medical records when she received them inadvertently. Thank you.

We are investigating the situation to see, in fact, exactly what happened and obviously we want to make sure that all the steps that were to be taken were taken. But first of all we have to have the facts, because this just came to light in the last few hours. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My Member’s statement today was travel from the outlying communities; Ulukhaktok and smaller communities that travel from communities for medical travel to either Inuvik or Yellowknife being bumped off. Will the Minister commit to working with the various departments and agencies to implement changes provided by the communities to improve the administration for medical travel to prevent future patients to have to wait in their communities or transit centres and half the time while in pain, Mr. Speaker? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I will commit to do that with the Member. We are reviewing the medical travel and we are reviewing the very issue that the Member is raising. Thank you.

When the patient is in pain in the communities, they must be flown out the next day or the next flight, no questions asked, to the nearest hospital. Mr. Speaker, there’s no reason that is good enough to have patients suffer needlessly, especially due to an overbooked plane. Mr. Speaker, how long does the Minister expect people to wait in their home communities in severe pain before a medevac is warranted? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Member is right that we have lots of people in our communities who have a permanent, twenty-four hour medical and health staff. Their services are provided by communities outside. We have to rely on medical travel to do that and obviously the people who live in these communities are entitled to good service and quick access. So, no, we don’t expect people who aren’t well to be waiting in pain. We do have a policy in place to do that. I know the medical director team in the Beaufort-Delta is reviewing the response policy and I will get back to the Member with the details of that. We are working to improve that system. Thank you.