Thanks to the Minister. I appreciate the Minister’s explanation, but I have to disagree with his assessment because I don’t believe that you can separate the two. I think, by the forum and the Minister agreeing that there is a stigma on mental health, we are simply making it worse. I think, until we start talking about mental health and accepting that it is an issue, some people refer to it as a disease, but until we start bringing that to the fore and accepting that is a problem that we have, we won’t adequately deal with it. I think it’s unfortunate that the forum members wanted to remove that particular phrase and replace it with community wellness. I will just leave that as a comment.
My last question has to do with the Nats’ejee K’eh Treatment Centre in Hay River. It has been quite a while now. It has probably been since the 16th that
Standing Committee on Social Programs members have been concerned about the usage at Nats’ejee K’eh. My understanding of the latest statistics, that
Members received, it was anywhere from a 50 percent occupancy up to maybe 60 or 70 percent. I don’t believe it was any better than that. Sometimes it was less than 50 percent occupancy, from what I understand. I believe we have had conversations with the Minister about whether or not something will be done with that facility to bring the occupancy and the usage to a much higher percentage.
I would like to know from the Minister whether or not a review has been done. There was talk of a review probably at least a year or two years ago now. There was going to be an analysis of what the centre was currently doing, what we needed as a territory to deal with, what we needed in a treatment centre and how we were going to change the centre, and use it better and have a greater occupancy rate.
I’d like to know from the Minister whether there has been any review of the centre, whether there is any intention on the part of the department to try and revise the programming at Nats’ejee K’eh to make it better utilized by our people. Thank you.