Thank you, Mr. Speaker. An aspect to health and social services that is provided in the Northwest Territories, home care workers, is an essential component of this system. They provide the necessary services to clients, especially to those living in communities that lack adequate staffing and infrastructure.

Home care workers play a vital role in helping people gain or maintain their independence in their homes and community. This is very important as this territory is seeing an increase in the seniors population.

The program itself assists people to stay in their homes, rather than going to a hospital or long-term care facility, which may or may not be located in their communities. This can be very difficult for families as this becomes a long-distance relationship with an important and loving family member and, furthermore, can add financial restraints to the family as well as emotional and psychological.

In some of our communities, we do not have the facilities to house some of our senior residents. As a result, home care is the next logical step. In Inuvik we have two positions for home care as well as a home care nurse. We are very fortunate. These individuals work tirelessly in sometimes a very thankless job, for going above and beyond, in most cases, to attend to the residents of Inuvik. I thank them for that. Some of their job duties include foot care, palliative care, respite care, nursing, and support and maintenance of personal care for the client, among many other duties. I can only imagine the workload for home care workers in those communities with limited nursing resources as well as those living without long-term care facilities.

As a government, we need to create services that are accessible and responsive to the needs of our residents of the Northwest Territories. More importantly, home care services that provide support to the communities which enable people to stay in their homes safely, and with dignity and a good quality of life.

I brought this up today because I heard of the concerns that are going on in Hay River, and the concerns that we have in Inuvik where our two home care workers are working very long hours nonstop to work for the people that need that assistance. It is a very important matter and I will have questions for the Minister of Health later on today.