Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There were a lot of comments here. I’m going to try to run through them without trying to repeat as much as possible. Also to try to group some of the response as best I can.
On the eHealth, we too agree that the electronic health is the way to go. Right now we have digital imaging and the DI/PACS are available in 22 communities across the North. This includes both the Stanton Hospital in Yellowknife, Inuvik Regional Hospital and then the following 20 communities: Hay River, Fort Smith, Behchoko, Simpson, Deline, Norman Wells, Tulita, Good Hope, Fort Resolution, Fort Providence, Whati, Gameti, Liard, Lutselk’e, Paulatuk, McPherson, Aklavik, Sachs Harbour, Ulukhaktok and Tuktoyaktuk. Electronic health records are available in all 33 communities and services through the telehealth are available in 73 locations in all 33 communities.
With the child and family services committees, the department has hired a coordinator recently. I don’t think we’ve made as much progress in the last year as we would have liked to have made. I think that the task was unexpectedly larger than what the department had anticipated. The immediate reaction from the department was that when we make a decision to proceed with putting child and family services committees together, that everybody would be onside and that would not be an issue. That was not the case. We have to not only educate our own health and social services authorities to identify the benefits of having child and family services committees, but also educate the people at the community level on the benefits of having these committees, and also a discussion with them with a coordinator, and so on, on the fact that maybe getting on a committee such as this is not to look into the affairs of other people’s business at the community level, and that has been a real stumbling block when we’re trying to develop these committees. We’re trying to go about it in a way that we’re making sure that all members of the community understand that people who are involved in child and family services committees are involved to benefit the community, and in the long run save costs in foster care and in the whole area of child and family services.
We have a few planning studies on the go, including Stanton Territorial Hospital. The Stanton Territorial Hospital study I believe will be, the planning is expected to be concluded very soon, this summer, and then we will have more planning
and schematic designing and so on. I believe the actual construction would, if everything goes according to the plan – and I do think we have to do this work. I don’t think this is work that can be put off. This is essential. It’s essential infrastructure for the Northwest Territories to have a proper hospital. However, we need to develop the cost and also develop the plan in order to make sure that we’re moving in the right direction. We’ll be going into the next capital planning process, infrastructure acquisition process, to determine how we’re going to spend the costs out and into the capital plan.
I know the government’s overall intention is to not borrow all of the money to renovate Stanton Territorial Hospital, but rather to have half the money come from surpluses within our O and M and then borrow the other half of the money. Right now we’re working with the number less than what one of the Members had indicated it would be. She had indicated that we are probably looking at $400 million, but I don’t think it’s going to be that high. We’d also consider private partnerships, P3 projects on this.
The funding levels for the health and social services authorities are an issue. However, before we start to move the funding around within the health authorities, we are going to look at where we can be efficient, where we can use reformed governance, and where we can have shared services. I had indicated earlier that we would do shared service without having to take positions out of any of the regions or any of the communities where those services are. As far as boards around the health and social services authority, currently we do intend to put a board back in place in the Beaufort-Delta, an advisory board, as indicated by the Member for Inuvik, and continue on at this time with an advisory board and a public administrator, then perhaps later on the advisory board would have a chairperson and we would go with that system.
At this time there is no plan to put a board back in place at Stanton Hospital. At this time we are proceeding part of our plan with the governance, the shared services, and everything how we’re moving forward. We’re planning at this time to move forward with a public administrator at Stanton.
We have boards at the Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority. We have a board in Fort Smith. We have a board in Sahtu. We have a board in the Deh Cho. In Hay River we don’t have a board. We have a public administrator in Hay River and again, we plan to move forward with a public administrator in place at this time.
We are reviewing the Medical Travel Policy. We’re trying to modernize the Medical Travel Policy. Medical travel is something that we think is an issue. A lot of the people have indicated to us that
they have some issues with medical travel. There seems to be a lack of real clear understanding of what the policy is intended to do. The policy is intended, because we can’t have doctors in every community, we have to bring the people to the doctor. That’s our difference. If you’re living in a jurisdiction where you have doctors that are immediately available to people in the majority of the percentage, then you wouldn’t have to have this type of policy in place. At this time we don’t have that available to us. In fact, we may even have difficulty having doctors in the regional centres all the time because at this time we use locums and so on.
The Medical Travel Policy kind of gives us an even playing field, if that could be a term used here, to provide to bring people from the communities to the doctors, as opposed to the doctors being at the community level. Right now there are lots of issues in the Medical Travel Policy. Individuals basically feel that once you hit a certain age, you automatically have an escort, if you’re at a certain level in your health, you automatically travel with an escort, and so on. Many of those things are misconceptions and we will try to clear that up in the policy. The work that we are doing is going to be developed over this year, this summer, so we’re not going to be dragging the work out on the review of the Medical Travel Policy over a long period of time. We’re going to try to deal with it as soon as possible.
Elders removed from their homes and end up in institutions is something that many of the small communities are opposed to. It’s heart-wrenching to actually sit and listen to the families that are left behind when they have no capacity to take care of their elders, and there’s no infrastructure in the community for them to take care of their elders. It had gotten to a point where they are a danger to themselves and they are a danger to their families if they were to be left in family homes and so on for various reasons.
Therefore, right now the Department of Health and Social Services is trying to respond by trying to put some long-term care in regional centres. We have long-term care in Behchoko. We have long-term care going into Norman Wells. We have in Inuvik. The MLA for Mackenzie Delta is right; there is no long-term care in Mackenzie Delta. Interestingly enough, though, the communities are not saying that they want actual long-term care. They are saying they want a place in the community where they can take care of their elders. Where they don’t need a whole bunch of nurses in the community to work in the centre to provide what we refer to as a department as long-term care. Rather, they would want to provide care to their elders in a facility where they can provide security and caring for their elders, cooking for their elders and so on. That was
the same sentiment that we heard in Deline as well. They’re saying we have a home here.
Those facilities are owned by the NWT Housing Corporation. As a department we have to work with the Housing Corporation to make a decision on whether or not we’re going to re-open those homes, allocate the units with the elders that need that type of care, work with the community to try to provide that care. This will save us money in the long run. We recognize that it’s a possibility that people will not necessarily have to go into long-term care.
Right now what’s happening in a community like Deline is that the people are at home. They’re staying in their community and they’re being cared for by the family members. The family members are getting very tired. In fact, a lady had indicated to us that if her cousin was not able to take her father, that she would have to be forced to send him back to Yellowknife. The cousin stepped forward and is now caring for her father and she too was having a difficult time at the time we spoke to her.
In order for us to try to build some sort of a continuum of care for elders and try to keep elders in their homes and then use the facilities maybe provided by the Housing Corporation just known as senior citizens homes rather than long-term care facilities, then we’re going to have to find a way to assist those people, those elders living in those homes or living in their own personal homes, and how we can help them to continue living in their homes through home care and other nursing that we can do right in the home.
The Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan will be tabled next week. Yes, it is a three-year plan. That’s why it’s an action plan as opposed to a long-term strategy. We want to be able to affect change in the area of mental health and addictions during this term so that the people sitting in this room will be responsible and will affect change in those areas. We can develop a long-term strategic plan in this area, and we can work on that. It could be a good idea to set the table for future governments, but this plan was intended to address the issues that are more immediate concerns of this Legislative Assembly.
There appears to be a decrease in the overall budget, although there isn’t, because if you compare main estimates to main estimates, then there is a slight increase of 1.6 percent. It’s an increase when you compare revised estimates with main estimates of 2012-2013 compared to the revised estimates of 2011-2012 because, as we do for firefighting, many of our costs come in throughout the year, anticipated costs come in through the year through supplementary appropriation.
The THSSI funding is something that is scheduled to expire; however, our plan is to continue to deal with the federal government where developing
relationships with the federal government, have a relationship with the federal government, have sat in a room with the federal government in federal-provincial-territorial meetings and we’re hoping that relationship will continue and that the federal government will continue the THSSI funding so that we can fund some of the essential programs that we’re funding with THSSI funding.
The Family Violence Program phase 3, the plan is to get through and have these main estimates, this budget of the Legislative Assembly passed. Once the budget is passed, if the budget is passed, then the plan is to move into a supplementary appropriation presenting a supplementary appropriation back to the Assembly to take a look at phase 3 of the Family Violence Act in that way. We need to have this dealt with first and then we’ll deal with the family violence.
The supplementary appropriation… I’m going to just quickly have the deputy minister speak on supplementary appropriation, and then it will come back to me again. Thank you.