Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to follow up on my Member’s statement on mental health issues and pose questions to the Minister of Health and Social Services.
My first question deals with patients being released from the Stanton Territorial Hospital’s mental health unit. Mental health unit staff sometimes make it a condition of release that the released patient stay at the Centre for Northern Families, presuming that there are skills and capacity at the CNF to meet the special needs of mental health outpatients. Yet the Centre for Northern Families has only hard-won experience with these people and some space, whereas trained staff, and especially funding, are needed to provide full care.
Can the Minister tell me why our health facilities would place such a condition of release, knowing full well the required capacity doesn’t exist?