Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Just an opportunity to do some general comments myself. I think I spoke earlier in the House, too, about the mental health workers and a retention strategy for keeping them in our very small communities. I believe it’s important because it has an impact on the residents. I spoke most particularly about Fort Liard, especially when there are times of distress or their lives have been upset. In the past, our mental health workers haven’t been there. I do have to say, like any other situation, staff have been going to Fort Liard to assist them at the moment, but it’s about consistency when you’re dealing with a mental health worker, somebody that you recognize, you develop a working relationship, you open up with them more, and that’s the kind of service that our smallest communities should have as well.
Speaking about accessible services, I just wanted to return about nursing for Wrigley. Currently, the situation is that the current lay dispenser is retiring soon and here’s an opportunity to really consider about returning a nursing station or nursing to the community of Wrigley. The Minister has got to bear in mind, too, that as the oilfields around the Sahtu get developed in a year or a couple years there will be increased impact to the communities due to development, and I think that’s how in the early ‘80s we got two nursing positions only because there was going to be a significant gas pipeline built up the North and at that time government felt the need to stem any potential impacts. They had two and then one nursing position there. I’d like to continue to keep that on the books and keep that high on my agenda as the MLA for that region, that the department has got to keep considering and finding
an opportunity to return nursing to the community of Wrigley.
The medical travel. I and my constituents are awaiting the medical travel review. It’s very important work that they’re doing to review it and, in fact, they were, I think, in Fort Simpson the first two weeks in January, and I was quite excited because I thought they’d be doing exit interviews, people that had just returned from medical travel and/or opportunity for a public discussion. They did go to the community of Trout Lake, but I didn’t see that they offered any public session or rolling out how they were going to review medical travel in the community of Fort Simpson. I actually got some people quite excited that had medical travel concerns that they were able to speak to somebody. But I wasn’t informed about how the department wants to review medical travel and what stage it’s at, and I certainly hope it’s not almost complete, because the people do want to have an opportunity to speak and share their experiences and even offer suggestions of how it can be improved. I think a lot of people that are concerned with medical travel always, you know, yes, there are some negative experiences, but also they say that my experience can actually save medical travel budget money if they had listened to me or if they had done other ways of getting medical knowledge to the client.
In one particular case, it’s about the client had actually went on a medical travel, jumped on the plane in Fort Simpson to Yellowknife, to the doctor’s office, and the doctor said, okay, here’s the results of your tests, and then were planning some further treatments and/or examinations later. Then that person flew back to Fort Simpson. I’m sure all throughout this North this kind of experience is common. There’s probably something to be said about the practitioner or the doctor dealing with the client personally, but in our communities we do have teleconferencing and that kind of stuff. Perhaps we can move towards that, especially if it’s just about informing about test results. The test results in this case were positive, but if they’re negative perhaps you have to see them in person, but I don’t know how you would make that call. But it’s something that should be looked at, and like I said, that’s just one issue and I’m hoping that people in my communities are able to share their experiences and offer their suggestions as well.
I also spoke in the House about the new medevac contract and about enhancing the times to get to the communities, and I’m pleased that the Minister said there is a commitment. I think it was, like, 120 minutes to get to a community. I would certainly like to restore the confidence of the medevac system to the communities. With that, I will conclude my general comments.