Thank you, Mr. Speaker. An aging population and aging family support system have major implications on our health care systems but, more importantly, on our respite services that are provided throughout the Northwest Territories and in our communities. I’ll take it a little bit further than that. It’s not only the aging population but we do have people in the Northwest Territories, whether it be a child or an adult, who are living with a disability or a chronic health condition. It could be physical, mental and, in some cases, cognitive impairment,
and they need assistance in their home, and their families need assistance providing those respite care services.
I want to talk about respite care services, talk about home care services, providing support workers, and even support for the support workers, creating instrumental activities so people who are under these conditions can actually live a daily lifestyle that you and I share, Mr. Speaker, or help them get reintegrated back into society.
Respite care has been reported to reduce the burden on families with family members who have developmental disabilities at home, relieves family stress, improves family functioning and also reduces social isolation for people with a chronic condition or disability. It gets them out in the community.
I know when we’ve extended health care services, we do provide long-term care services, we provide day programming, we do have home care services in the communities, but when you talk to our home care support staff, when you only have one in a community, they’re overburdened with the amount of elders they have to visit, the amount of children they have to visit, the amount of people who have developmental disabilities or other physical impairments.
We do have a lot of challenges in the Northwest Territories. For instance, we have eight communities without a nurse. We have health centres that are aging and depleting. We also have some facilities that don’t have gyms and other facilities where we can hold these day programs, and we also have some human resources issues, and more importantly, there’s always a financial burden when it comes to these kinds of discussions.
Most families pay out of pocket for respite services. In fact, those who can’t pay for it actually go without respite services.
I will be asking questions of the Minister of Health today how we can address those issues and give people who need that assistance the assistance. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.