As I indicated previously, the territorial model’s primary goal is to support the knowledge and skill capacity of community health nurses through continued interaction and direct clinical support with midwives. This will benefit all NWT communities by raising the standard of community maternity care. This is one of the primary goals of a territorial program. There’s also the secondary benefit of being able to provide some midwifery support to residents of Yellowknife who choose to access those types of services.
The fact is, at the end of the day, if a patient is at risk, if there are any severe concerns about the birth, they will be coming into a community like Yellowknife or Inuvik anyway, even if midwifery services are provided in a community like Fort Smith or Hay River. High-risk patients still come to those two centres. So we need to focus out of where these high-end services exist just in case we do have to bring individuals in. We also want to push out to communities and support community health nurses.
As a territorial program, I think there’s some value for it to be in Yellowknife. It does provide us the opportunity to provide some midwifery services to a large population in Yellowknife as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.