Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have a few comments here and maybe a couple of questions. Over the last few years here, since the last government, they shut down the long-term care in Aklavik, and there’s a high demand in our communities of my riding. Right now a lot of the elders have to go to Inuvik for long-term care and the majority of our elders want to stay in our communities when they get to that age. Their families are in the community and can visit them on a daily basis; whereas, when they’re in the regional centre, they’re lucky if their family sees them once a month or every other weekend. It’s very stressful, especially on the elders.
Also, nursing, once again in Tsiigehtchic there’s an ongoing issue. Hopefully we can come to some sort of terms here, whether it’s a licenced practical nurse, you know the community really needs something full time. We can’t rely on services once or twice a week. We have a number of emergencies, most of the times it’s during the weekend. The community, you could tell, is very uncomfortable during freeze-up and breakup because we do have a nurse on hand 24 hours a day. That service in the community is really needed.
Also, we just spoke earlier today, but I’d like to bring it up anyway. On-the-land treatment programs, my colleague mentioned it a little earlier today. Over the last few years there have been a lot of people dealing with residential school issues and, you know, it seems that just when we’ve brought the issue back up there’s no support for those people moving forward. You know, a lot of times it takes time to overcome a lot of issues and we need to be there for our residents and we need programs. You know, once a year is just not adequate. We need something at least every three months. There are a lot of people in our territory that need assistance. I didn’t ask the Minister the question earlier, but I’d like to know exactly how many people are actually going south for treatment. I don’t think the numbers are very high compared to what we had here in the territory.
Also, home care workers in the communities of Tsiigehtchic and Fort McPherson, especially Fort McPherson where we have the largest number of elders in my riding. It’s in the neighbourhood of 200 elders over the age of 60. There’s a big demand there but we only have one person working at the moment. It’s pretty clear that we need at least two people on a daily basis to assist there. For now those are the only general comments that I have. Thank you, Madam Chair.