The point I wanted to make, again, reflects to the many priorities within health care, many priorities within this specific budget item we’re talking about and that health care is not quite equal across the North here and they’re doing their best. I know that some of the health centres have the technology to hook up with some of the other larger hospitals to look at issues such as diabetes. My point is, I’m hoping that this Minister, within the life of this government, makes some strong recommendations to look at the seriousness of diabetes in our small communities and makes some strong recommendations to have some strong programs in our communities. This is a very dangerous disease. It’s increasing every year more and more and we need to really put this issue at the forefront, like alcohol and drug programs, and have our own region take care of it. So I just wanted to say that.
I also wanted to say that I look forward to a day where we could have the Midwifery Program in our region. Right now we have it in Smith and Yellowknife and the people in Yellowknife are sending a petition around to have it here. Again, I’m looking forward to seeing where other regions can take advantage of it. We did have it at one time, now we no longer have it. Now we have new rules to follow and new technology that we have to learn. So I hope that the Minister can put in some strong recommendations to improve the Midwifery Program not only in Yellowknife and Fort Smith but also in our communities. It has a lot of cultural significance if that program moves ahead. I do support having one here in Yellowknife and one in Fort Smith, but let’s move out beyond that and hope that that’s in the long-term planning.
Mr. Chair, I wanted to ask the Minister about midwifery. What will it take to have that program in the books so the health boards can look at it? Now, I say that to support our families in our communities, because I’m afraid that these types of programs would be decentralized. If there’s a discussion about health boards maybe in the future being amalgamated into one super board, I fear that along with it some of the programs are also going to be amalgamated and we won’t see the programs we want in our region. So I want to ask the Minister is that type of discussion happening at
her senior management level and also with government.
I’d like to finish this off with the support we need for the residential school survivors. It’s a huge issue. Our people in our correctional facilities talk about the residential school issues. People in our communities talk about the residential school issues. We have an interagency committee set up by this government under the direction of the Department of Education, Culture and Employment that deals with a vast array of residential school issues. This department is part of that interagency committee. In my communities, these issues are still alive and well. Last weekend I went to Tulita and sat with an elder and talked about this issue for about an hour. We just don’t seem to have the support there to deal with this type of issue. I was hoping that this Minister would go to the Government of Canada and press them hard on support in our communities, not for just one-time funding but ongoing funding. A lot of issues point to residential school and we’re not meeting or supporting our people to deal with those issues. I was hoping that the Department of Health would take a serious look at this, not from a statistical point of view or from a clinical but from a cultural point of view.
The Minister has supported a community in my riding to bring an elder into my riding. It took a long time, but we got the elder there and I want to thank her and her staff for working with my people to bring this elder in there. The elder talked and saw many people, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal and they really appreciated it. That’s what I’ve been supporting all along, is having an alternative method to look at how we deal with issues such as residential school. I know that we can do something. It’s been proven successful in the last couple of days and the last week in the Sahtu by having this elder come into our communities. Again, I appreciate the Minister for making this happen. The people are happy they got to see this elder. There were quite a few people.
I want to just close with these being some of the concerns I’m going to raise with the Minister here.