As we move forward with our…(inaudible)…communities what we’re hoping to do is actually enhance services for individuals so that they could stay in their homes. I’ve travelled throughout the Northwest Territories and talked to people in almost every community, actually in every community, including Yellowknife, and what I’ve heard is people want to be able to stay in their homes, in their communities, in their regions for as long as they possibly can. Moving forward, that is part of our priority, but we also know, in time, individuals, even if they want to stay in their own homes, may eventually have to move out of their homes, and the first logical step would be moving into independent living. In cooperation with the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation, who is taking the lead, the NWT Housing Corporation is building a number of independent living units throughout the Northwest Territories, and at the current time they’re either already building or about to build five different seniors independent living units through them. Those are in Whati, Liard, Fort McPherson, Fort Good Hope as

well as I believe they’re almost done the one in Aklavik.

The nice thing about these facilities that the NWT Housing Corporation is building is they are actually including a bit of a program room area where we can come to that facility with our home care workers and other professionals to provide some independent living like supports to those individuals so that we can keep them in their communities as long as possible. We do know that, unfortunately, even with that option, people may transition to the point where they are no longer able to live independently. We believe with home care supports and other supports we’ll be able to support that independent living paradigm a little longer than we have been to date. Hopefully, we’ll be able to delay that. But we do know that some people will hit a point where they can’t stay in independent living, so then we’re looking at long-term care facilities.

In the Northwest Territories our first goal is to get long-term care facilities in every region of the Northwest Territories. We do have a number of beds in the Inuvik hospital for long-term care. We are currently building the Norman Wells facility that’s going to provide us with 18 beds, long-term care beds, beds that have never existed in the Sahtu region as that next step for the people in the Sahtu as well as people for the entire Northwest Territories. We have expanded the number of beds in the Tlicho by eight by expanding the facility in Behchoko, so those are long-term care. We do have a number of long-term care beds in Simpson to cover the Deh Cho. We have long-term care beds in Fort Smith, and we have long-term care beds in Hay River. We had a little bit of a blip there that we were concerned that we might lose 10 beds that are in Hay River, but through committee we’ve been able to get the funding to make sure that we actually maintain those 10 beds, keeping our total at 25 in Hay River.

In Yellowknife, the Government of the Northwest Territories has funded Avens to construct beds. Obviously, there’s a lot of concern about the number of beds in Yellowknife and the need to do some upgrades there, and I’m committed to working with Avens to increase the number of beds available in Yellowknife. Four years ago we opened the Dementia Facility, which would be the last step, the last ability for us to provide services. It would be independent in homes, then if you have to, it would be independent living facilities with our support, then you might have to move to a regional centre for long-term care, and if you, unfortunately, proceed into a state of dementia or are suffering from dementia, your next and last step would be moving into the territorial facility here in Yellowknife, which is the Avens Dementia Facility which we opened four years ago here in Yellowknife and fully fund the operation of that facility.

There are a number of steps that an individual would go through and we’re committed to looking at the number of long-term care beds in the Northwest Territories. We recently had a study done that suggested, rightfully, that the need for beds is going to increase. We believe we’re going to start helping these people at the front end and hopefully delay their need to go to a long-term care bed where they have full supports, and hopefully, we’ll be able to delay and help people not have to go into something like the Dementia Facility earlier in life. More supports at home, the longer we’ll be able to help people to stay where they truly want to be, which is in their communities, in their homes, in their regions, and then, ultimately, Yellowknife, if need be.