This is page numbers 3153 – 3192 of the Hansard for the 17th Assembly, 4th Session. The original version can be accessed on the Legislative Assembly's website or by contacting the Legislative Assembly Library. The word of the day was chair.

Topics

Kevin A. Menicoche

Kevin A. Menicoche Nahendeh

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Earlier I spoke about the dental hygienist and the poor oral health in the small communities and the abilities of the dentists to get out there. I would like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services what the department is doing currently to remedy the poor oral health practises and visits to the smaller communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Minister of Health, Mr. Beaulieu.

Tom Beaulieu

Tom Beaulieu Minister of Health and Social Services

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Health and Social Services recognizes that poor oral health is costly to our health system and that poor oral health leads to all kinds of other problems that negatively impact students in schools. So what we are doing in the big picture overall is developing an oral health

strategy, working with the two northern jurisdictions, Yukon and Nunavut, to develop an oral health strategy.

Kevin A. Menicoche

Kevin A. Menicoche Nahendeh

Also, I would like to ask, is increasing the amounts of dental days to small communities part of that strategy.

Tom Beaulieu

Tom Beaulieu Minister of Health and Social Services

The dental services in itself for a Treaty Dene is not covered. It’s not an insured service, so that is covered by Non-Insured Health Benefits from the federal government, although it’s in the contract with us and we provide the same service to the Metis, and we also provide the same service to people over 60, through extended health. So that is something that we are looking at working on better ways on how dental hygienists can work with the dentists.

Right now we have to be under the supervision of the dentist, but we are trying to work on that. There is as much indirect supervision as possible, but at the end of the day, they have to be under that supervision. We have vacancies for dental therapists right now in the NWT. Thank you.

Kevin A. Menicoche

Kevin A. Menicoche Nahendeh

I think all governments should invest into more visits to our communities.

Also in my Member’s statement, I spoke about the ability to change the Dental Auxiliaries Act to allow dental hygienists services and to provide that service. It’s another alternative way to provide better oral health to our communities. Will the Minister focus on that and move to make legislative changes? Thank you.

Tom Beaulieu

Tom Beaulieu Minister of Health and Social Services

Certainly, we will have a discussion with the dental contractors to provide more days. It would cost the system more money to provide more days. So if what we’re finding is we know the exact amount of days a dentist goes into each community, so we would check to see the utilization of that time that they’re in. An example would be if they spend 43 days in Fort Liard in 2010-11 and 42 days in 2013-14. So there would be no increase, so my assumption would be they weren’t having full utilized days while they were in there. But I will check that and if they are fully utilizing all their days and there is more time needed in any of these communities, we’ll have that discussion. That would be something that would have to go into the contracts we have with various dentists.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.

Kevin A. Menicoche

Kevin A. Menicoche Nahendeh

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I am glad to hear that. If the Minister can just speak about amending the Dental Auxiliaries Act specifically to allow dental hygienists to operate unsupervised in the communities, that will give us the potential for increased visits to the communities as well. Also, Mr. Speaker, I really believe we

should invest in oral hygiene care in all communities. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. That’s more of a comment. Mr. Beaulieu.

Tom Beaulieu

Tom Beaulieu Minister of Health and Social Services

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Health and Social Services Professional Act is something that the Member is aware that we are going through 19 different acts, including the Dental Auxiliaries Act. That is something that we are looking at, so it’s a future possibility that we can develop regulations specific to dental hygienists. However, there is another factor and that is there are no dental hygienists school in Canada at this point. So what we are hoping to do is work with perhaps not even other jurisdictions, but right into other countries. We are thinking about working with Alaska on that.

So we are looking at the acts to change them so dental hygienists can be a bigger piece of the puzzle and work independently at the community level. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.

Question 385-17(4): Medical Travel Policy
Oral Questions

October 27th, 2013

Alfred Moses

Alfred Moses Inuvik Boot Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Health and Social Services with regard to the Medical Travel Policy. I guess my first question would be: Does the department have a point of contract or an NWT coordinator or regional coordinator for anybody that’s travelling to either Edmonton or Yellowknife for medical treatment or appointments to contact, should they be travelling on the weekend, say a Saturday or Sunday, and needs some information? It might even be late at night and somebody could give them assistance so they can get back to their home town, back into their community such as Inuvik. Does the department currently have an on-call service for after hours or on the weekend, should people find themselves in that situation?

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Moses. The honourable Minister of Health, Mr. Beaulieu.

Tom Beaulieu

Tom Beaulieu Minister of Health and Social Services

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Anyone travelling with medical travel, according to the policy, should have an after-hours number so that if an individual is returning from medical travel on Sunday, Saturday or a late night flight, then that individual is supposed to be equipped with an after-hours number if they cannot afford to get back home to their community. So if an individual is landing in Inuvik and they are from another community in the area, they would overnight in Inuvik in a boarding home. If they are from Inuvik, they are supposed to just jump in a cab, go home and be reimbursed. If they don’t have money, there is a number that is provided to them.

Alfred Moses

Alfred Moses Inuvik Boot Lake

When individuals are consulted on this after-hours number or when they are going through their itinerary, is there somebody else in the room with these clients or individuals? In some cases, I’ve had elders approach me where they have agreed on medical travel and agreed to go to Edmonton without an escort when, in fact, they did need an escort. When I have approached the Minister in the past, he’s always said this elder – the Minister’s office, I shouldn’t say the Minister himself – was consulted. However, in some cases, the elder or the individual might just agree, not knowing what they’re agreeing to. So is there someone else that is consulted, a third party that the client can approach that attends these meetings with the client?

Tom Beaulieu

Tom Beaulieu Minister of Health and Social Services

There should be. If the health professional is not able to communicate with the individual, then there should be somebody else there that can provide assistance to the individual and the health profession to ensure communication. I’m afraid what the Member is bringing up is correct. Sometimes elders will just get the information and then go down south. What we can do is, in cases where individuals are travelling to and from, we can alert Larga. For example, if they are in Inuvik, Vital Abel is available if they are here, to make sure that the people understand when they are going back home or when they’re travelling in, they understand that these are the numbers they are to call if they were to get into any distress or if they are feeling nobody is there available to pick them up at the airport and so on, so we can ensure that the system is picking that up. Thank you.

Alfred Moses

Alfred Moses Inuvik Boot Lake

Thank you. Another issue that we’re having with the Medical Travel Policy here is the amount of time it takes for an individual to get approval for their travel, for their appointments and the amount of time when they do have an appointment, they’re usually given sometimes last minute notice – a day, not even two days, sometimes even the same day – that they’ve got an approval to go on travel. This also results in some of the no-shows that we have, this government has taken in as debt because of people not showing up to their appointments.

Has there been any update or any upgrades to the approval system of medical travel in the Northwest Territories? Thank you.

Tom Beaulieu

Tom Beaulieu Minister of Health and Social Services

Thank you. The Department of Health and Social Services is able to gather all of the information necessary to modernize the Medical Travel Policy and the Medical Travel Program. At this time, some of those issues are the exact things we’re trying to work out of the system. We recognize that medical travel is a very important part of people travelling to appointments because we can’t always bring the doctors to the people. So we are working with that,

we’re looking at some electronic aids and so on that would be able to help sometimes and maybe divert medical travel. But at the end of the day, there are 1,000 medical travel trips a month. We’re trying to make each of those events as uneventful and smooth of a trip down to see the doctor and back. So that is something that we are currently looking at. Hopefully we’ll get the bugs out. It’s a difficult task, but we’re trying to get the bugs out of the medical system so it works effectively for everyone. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.

Alfred Moses

Alfred Moses Inuvik Boot Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Medical Travel Policy itself hasn’t been revised in about 15 years and the Minister has made some suggestions to that. When would this government look at a possible revised Medical Travel Policy that might include such things as an after-hours coordinator, a weekend coordinator, language translator and speeding up the process such as putting in timelines? Is there a timeline that we can see a revised Medical Travel Policy within this government? Thank you.

Tom Beaulieu

Tom Beaulieu Minister of Health and Social Services

Thank you. Unfortunately, I do not have the exact date of when we are going to make changes to the Medical Travel Policy. We have someone currently working on it. I don’t know of the timelines, but I am prepared and willing to provide that information to the Members as soon as I can. Before the end of session I can provide the timelines. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Robert Hawkins

Robert Hawkins Yellowknife Centre

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Last week on Thursday I was trying to raise the issue of 911. The fact is, the concern in Yellowknife, as well as across the Northwest Territories, is this file still has gone nowhere.

So I ask the Minister of MACA, who is in charge of the 911 issue, I guess one could look at it that way or I don’t know what he’s doing with it. So that’s where my first question lies.

What is the Minister of MACA doing to move forward the file of 911 to ensure we have safety for all Northerners as requested by NWTAC, the City of Yellowknife and Northerners at large? Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. McLeod.