Thank you, Madam Chair. Most of the comments have been made. I guess I just wanted to make a few comments relative to Hay River. Obviously, we’re excited about the new health centre coming on board this coming year. We’re excited to see the Midwifery Program being implemented. One thing that’s really helped me recently as an MLA is the system navigator and the go-to person to a lot of the issues that some of my
constituents have been having. It seems like we’ve been getting a lot of success that way. At least people getting contacted and being connected with the department. I’m not sure how the system works as far as dealing with individual people, but sometimes people feel like they’ve been left out or not communicated with, and through the system navigator it seems like we’ve been able to get responses to people right away. Maybe not exactly where they want to be on a list for surgery or a list of when they’re going to get their special examinations or whatever, but at least they know exactly where they stand.
I know we’ve been working on a cancer navigator or looking at that. I think that’s going forward. I think that’s a way to deal with the public a lot more. I mean, that’s probably a good percentage of our job in the fact that we see a lot of concerns from different people on the system and how they deal with them, especially ones that are from people from the communities feel like a lot of times they have to come to Yellowknife or to Edmonton and where they sit on the list and when that would be expected.
Those people that have been travelling, I’ve been hearing lots of good things about the two homes that we have in Yellowknife and in Edmonton. Even speaking to a constituent this afternoon, one constituent was pleased. He was just in Edmonton and he was very pleased with the service and responsiveness that he got while staying there. I’ve heard that several times, so I just wanted to pass that on to the department.
Several Members have talked about on-the-land programs, and we’ve heard this concern in Hay River. I’m just not sure if the department is waiting for a proponent to drive some of these programs or is the department going forward and looking for proponents in different regions. That would be a concern of mine. I’m not sure if we have a proponent in Hay River that would necessarily be taking an on-the-land program, but would the department be looking at ways of implementing that through somebody or through different organizations and bodies?
There have been quite a few people talking about the closure of the addictions facility on the Hay River Reserve. Obviously, we’re concerned about that. A lot of people, when it did close, had an explanation from the department where it was but the department was looking for other opportunities for that facility. It’s a beautiful facility. It’s a great asset the GNWT owns, and we should be using that asset and getting that back into the inventory, and I’m assuming it’s going to be in our health system to benefit that. I think Members have spoken, whether it’s a diabetes clinic or mental health, that type of stuff. We need to use that asset
that we have on Nats'ejee K'eh to the maximum. For it to sit there empty is a complete waste.
Speaking of the mental health, we’ve been hearing issues recently in the Hay River area now that we’re getting more successful identifying some of the problems that we have in our communities related to mental health, we’re having wait-lists. We’re having people having to wait a long period of time. Some of that is maybe because I’m not sure if we really have enough staff in that area or if we’re not willing to pay overtime, but I mean, it’s definitely an issue that’s out there. If those wait times are getting longer and longer there are a lot of people that are in pain and suffering through this mental health stuff, so I think we need to address that where we’re seeing long wait times in communities such as Hay River.
I know we’ve talked with the Minister and I know the Minister has been to Hay River to talk about the one health authority. Obviously, we have some strong interest in that. I think we want to see some representation from the region and from different people other than just one individual, our public administrator, who is doing a good job, but I think the community wants to be able to contact several people or get kind of a group or a regional concept of what we want to do with our authority. I think that part of it is very positive. Obviously, the big question mark is how do we plan to move forward with the Hay River Health Authority and its staff obviously protecting their interests but also being able to create this one authority, and obviously the staff not being GNWT is an issue going forward. I think the Minister is well aware of that, and we need to assess the complete cost to that.
Those are my main issues with the Department of Health right now, and I’ll leave it at that.