Thank you, Mr. Chair. Obviously a very important budget, the Department of Health. It’s the biggest budget we have, $391 million, just about $392 million.

I guess, in no particular order, some of my colleagues mentioned some of these issues, but obviously I want to mention them again.

Midwifery, obviously I’m pleased to see that in the budget for Hay River. I know we were talking about the implementation last year. I’m definitely looking for assistance in that area to help people be able to put Hay River, Northwest Territories, back on their birth certificates. It is definitely an issue I have been pushing since I got elected. I think midwifery is going to be an option for some of those people out there, not the answer to everybody. Only certain people meet those requirements or feel that comfort level in midwifery, but I am definitely excited about the project. It’s maybe not just a birthing issue but also an option for ladies before they give birth and after they give birth. It’s definitely an asset in the community that we’re looking forward to having.

Along with that, the constant demand or questions about filling positions of doctors in Hay River continues to be an issue. I know the department has been talking about trying to do more with centralization of doctors, helping our authority to place doctors in the community. I look forward to keep working at that. I think we had one success and she seems to really like it in Hay River. I’m

hoping that it’s a selling feature for doctors to come in the future.

The next topic I want to talk about is medical travel. Obviously it’s a big dollar item for the department. There always seems to be issues with people for medical travel, whether they are eligible to travel, whether they can fly direct. More recently, I just had a senior talk to me about wanting to fly direct to Hay River from Edmonton, but was given a little bit of a run-around from the department because the costs are cheaper to go through Yellowknife through some other commercial airlines. I definitely have a concern in that area. We should be trying to make it convenient, especially for seniors that don’t want to have to wait in the airport and in Yellowknife here for five or six hours at a time. I think we should be looking at convenience for elders, obviously. With that, though, our seniors are very accommodating. That senior actually indicated to me that he was very pleased with the staff at Larga House. They need to be commended. They do a great job.

The next item that I wanted to talk about the Department of Health is obviously the new health facility that is being built in Hay River. We are excited for that. Construction seems to be going well. Obviously, we had concerns about the extended care beds. The department has shown us that it is in their capital budgets to come forward, but I guess we still have some more questions and some more issues with the new facility. It doesn’t quite have enough room for all the offices that we currently have in our existing facility, so office space will be definitely an issue coming forward once that facility is up and running. Along those lines of that extended care, like I mentioned in my Member’s statement this week, about actually assessing what we need as a community.

My colleagues talked about it a couple of times these last couple of days, as well, that our population is aging. Hay River is a central location. We tend to have some seniors move to Hay River just for the convenience, it’s a regional centre, some of their family is there. What the demands are for the community is something that we want to assess while we’re doing this upgrade – what are the demands, how many seniors are we going to have in five, 10 or 20 years – so we are planning for the future and some of the efficiencies that we can be doing if those demands are increasing, which we know they are.

I would also like to talk about community wellness. Obviously, it is a big uptake from the community of Hay River. I know that our Metis and a lot of people have been working on it, given a lot of comfort to the community as far as some of those people have been involved in and have thought they were disengaged from the department. It’s definitely been an asset to the community. I think people are

feeling a little bit more comfort that they have a say in what’s happening in some of those areas.

Obviously drug and alcohol is still an issue for our territory. It holds us back a lot. There are a lot of expenses that we spend because of drug and alcohol. It slows down economic development. It does a lot of factors. Obviously we are concerned with the closure in Nats’ejee K’eh. Those jobs were not in my riding, but those jobs definitely affected Hay River. The majority of those people lived in Hay River. We definitely had some concerns about how that rolled out and how that was presented to us at the 11th hour after the decision had been

made. We know that it is a great asset of a facility and we need to find an effective use of that facility and replace some of those jobs, I’m hoping.

Obviously we don’t have a health board anymore, but we definitely feel that there’s a need for an advisory type of board, an advisory board where people can give feedback. We have one public administrator that deals with community concerns, complaints, but I think we have a variety of people in the community that would like to give feedback. I think if you had an advisory board where even with Hay River being regionalized, even if there was funding available for regional type of information or feedback. But that being said, we also need to recognize that Hay River is a regional centre. Along with that, some funding would be an asset.

Those are some of the basic information that we’ve been dealing with over the last couple of years with health. I thought I’d mention them as a general statement. I’m sure we will have more questions in the detail. Thank you, Mr. Chair.