By the dental therapists that we do have, yes.
Child and Family Services Act, Mr. Moses brought this up and I think a number of the other Members did bring this up as well. An Auditor General report is coming forward shortly. I haven’t seen it, the system works in such a way that I don’t actually see it until basically the same time you do, but I have heard anecdotally that it is going to be rough. We look forward to seeing the report and coming up with solutions to address the issues that are outlined in it.
A number of Members have talked about traditional foods and this is one I would love to say yes to, but unfortunately, we know bringing foods into a facility comes with its own challenges and we will continue to have discussions with people in the facilities to see what options exist, but it is challenging. I know it sounds like it should be something that is easy but it is not, because there is actually a number of regulations that limit what we can prepare commercially in our kitchens. We recognize the desire and we will continue to work forward and try to address that.
Mr. Nadli talked about the health centre and the option to use the building, the current health centre, for other purposes. Obviously, we are always interested in something like that. The Department of Health and Social Services, once we open the new health facility, will surplus that building unless there are any other uses that we have for it, which we don’t believe is the case at the time, and it will go through the normal distribution process and Public Works and Services has that well laid out, so the community will certainly have an opportunity to discuss the use of that facility in the future.
Mr. Nadli did talk about regional health boards and I think that I have talked about the need for moving forward with some change and improving the system. I think Mr. Nadli – and I apologize if I am getting this wrong – had a concern about not losing
the voice of the people, and we share that desire, to make sure that the voice is heard.
Mr. Nadli also talked about seniors and I have talked a little bit about our continuing care and how we are going to move forward with the Aging in Place Strategy, which we will certainly have more discussions with committee.
A number of the Members mentioned Nats'ejee K'eh. Yes, the facility shut down. We do need to find a use for that facility. I have had an opportunity to talk to the chief from the Hay River Reserve about the facility and about options for usages and we are exploring some usages that will give us some really positive results for the community, but also the Northwest Territories. Nothing has been decided. I am still talking to committee about that as well as to the community, but we are looking for some immediate use for that facility.
A number of Members talked about an Avens expansion. I have had a number of meetings with the board of directors at Avens, also the staff have been meeting with Avens. I know it was suggested by a Member that we don’t necessarily care about what is happening at Avens and that we aren’t engaging them, that is not the case. We are actively involved with them and we are exploring mutually beneficial opportunities, and there are a number of them that we are discussing. They are not necessarily asking us to fund the construction, I think they have come up with some solutions that will allow them to move forward without our involvement, but it will mean more programming and we will have to find more ways to support that. We are working with Avens, we are working with them on a regular basis, trying to find solutions and discussing mutually beneficial opportunities. Some of this will be, obviously, issues that will come up in an aging place.
Ms. Bisaro talked a little bit about the Anti-Poverty Strategy, and I thank her for her kind comments. This is something the Premier committed to and the departments have been working together on, our response, rather, to the framework that was put together by the working group that consisted of non-government organizations, community governments, Aboriginal governments, but I hear the Member say that she is looking for ways to see if there is any opportunity that we can look at where government policies create barriers or challenges. This is something that I can say the social envelope committee of Cabinet has been discussing and we recognize, and I know Mr. Bromley has brought it up many, many times before, and we hear you and we’re trying to find ways to get past some of this. One of the ways is the integrated case management pilot. We feel that this is an opportunity to look at some of the areas that might be butting heads, to see what we can do to improve
services. There are more. We recognize that, but we have to start somewhere.
Ms. Bisaro wasn’t the only one and I know I’ve talked a little bit about the deficits. The deficits are real. We have authorities all purchasing things in their own ways. We have authorities with different accounting systems. We have authorities that are set up who aren’t on EMR, who have different computer systems, there’s no tie-in. All those things create inefficiencies, plus we also have a high demand from our residents. The costs are high. We have to find a way to better understand the needs financially and a better way to flow it into the system so that it makes sense, but this year we are running deficits once again.
Mr. Bromley talked about why there was such a large increase in the directorate. I will just throw it out real quickly. This is where we put the anti-poverty section of the Department of Health and Social Services. We’ve hired the clinical advisor and a number of other things. Mr. Bromley wants us to take a lead on ECD. I would say we are working collaboratively together with Education, Culture and Employment and with respect to the four categories or the four action items out of the 22 that are health-specific, most of them deal with zero to three, so we are taking a lead in that area. But we are working together and it has to be collaborative. People keep handing me notes and I’m running out of time.
I can keep going; I mean, there are a lot of things missing. Do you want me to keep going? I’ll keep going until someone says I will rise and report progress. How does that sound?
Mr. Bromley also talked about wellness courts and work is being done on the wellness courts and it is continuing to move forward. There is money in the budget this year for an integrated case management pilot which is going to be a key component of the moving forward with the wellness courts. Once again, there was conversation about lines of authority. We are talking about governance, and I will continue to work with committee.
It was suggested that we did not fulfill the direction of the House with respect to ECD and midwifery. I’m not sure what the Member was referring to by not fulfilling our direction with respect to ECD. We are doing incredibly good work there.
Midwifery, we didn’t make as much progress as we had wanted, but I can tell you today that we are shortly going to be going out for competition for the midwives in Hay River. We are hoping to actually expedite it. We were planning to back it from the opening of the facility to give enough time for people to provide programs and services so it would line up nicely with delivery or the opening of the new facility, but we are going to do some minor renovations in the old facility that will allow us to do that before. We are hoping to hire somebody in
short order so that we can get those midwifery services. All the clinical governance guideline work has been done, so we are pretty close to being ready to go there.
Mr. Blake talked about medical escorts and medical travel. We are reviewing the Medical Travel Policy. I have shared the timeline with committee on when that work is going to get done. We will continue to move forward with that. I will continue to work with committee. I like what Mr. Yakeleya had to say about we have to have a sympathetic system that recognizes that people that are having layovers in a community like Norman Wells, that putting someone on crutches or in a wheelchair and leaving them in an airport for five to six hours may not be the most reasonable thing or fair or sympathetic. I take his point and we will work on that.
Sorry, Norman, you’re going to have to ask me some questions.
We talked about naturopaths yesterday. It has been suggested that when it comes to naturopaths, the people’s wishes are falling on deaf ears. That is just frankly not true. Naturopaths, I have moved them up on the list as far as regulation. They are fourth on the list. I have a meeting with the naturopaths in the next couple of weeks to talk about their concerns. They are being heard and we will work with them.
Doctors’ pay, we are going with the Territorial Physicians Staffing Model through the collaborative shared services area.
Just for the record, we don’t always ignore Members. In fact, I’d say we never ignore Members. By way of an example, it has been suggested that we have ignored Members. Just a really small example, one of the Members in this House brought forward an idea that we have to put some regulations around suntanning beds. We did that. Absolutely we did that. In March 2013, after the Member brought it up, we put regulations on beds. People under 19 can’t use them and we have shared all this information with all the nine facilities that provide tanning in the Northwest Territories and they all hang signing up that we have provided. So we do listen to Members and we do respond to Members’ desires.
I think I’m on Jane and…I mean Mr. Bouchard and Mrs. Groenewegen. I’m almost done. You know what? I think I’ve actually addressed all the issues of Mr. Bouchard and Mrs. Groenewegen, so I’ll stop. How does that sound?