This is page numbers 4293 - 4314 of the Hansard for the 18th Assembly, 3rd Session. The original version can be accessed on the Legislative Assembly's website or by contacting the Legislative Assembly Library. The word of the day was services.

Topics

Tom Beaulieu

Tom Beaulieu Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh

I would like to ask the Minister if the department would consider supporting the launching of a territorial-wide Indigenous guardianship program. There are many reasons, positive reasons, to have guardianship programs in all regions across the territories, and maybe even a couple of guardianship programs in a particular region. So, again, would the Minister support the launching of a territorial-wide Indigenous guardianship program?

Robert C. McLeod

Robert C. McLeod Inuvik Twin Lakes

The guardianship programs, they are best championed, developed, and implemented by the Indigenous governments. The GNWT, we would be more than happy to play a supporting role, but programs such as these would work a lot better if they are planned and implemented by the Indigenous governments with support from the territorial government.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackson Lafferty

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

Tom Beaulieu

Tom Beaulieu Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I heard what he just said, but will the Minister commit to engaging the federal government, I guess, in support of some of the proposals that may come forward? What I am asking is that we need some sort of coordination at some level, and I feel that the GNWT is in the best position to coordinate these type of programs. They have renewable resource officers, that I mentioned in there, who could work hand in hand with the guardians, who could assist in training the guardians. They could work with the rangers. They could work with the various groups in the community, all designed to make sure that they are protecting the land and waterways across the territory. So would the Minister engage with the federal government to assist the various guardianship programs that could potentially happen across the territory?

Robert C. McLeod

Robert C. McLeod Inuvik Twin Lakes

We would be more than happy to work in partnership with the Indigenous governments of the Northwest Territories as they put proposals together to try to access some of the federal funding. The Member is correct. The GNWT may be best-positioned sometimes to have those talks with the federal government, along with I think they have a couple of residents of the Northwest Territories who are part of a national organization or a national group. Again, the Member is absolutely correct. Working in partnership with the Indigenous governments, I think it's important that we, as a territorial government, in our meetings with our counterparts in Ottawa continue to advocate for additional funding for a lot of these guardianship programs. So that was a long answer just to say, yes, we will continue to support the Indigenous governments. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackson Lafferty

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.

Kevin O'Reilly

Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake

Merci, Monsieur le President. My statement earlier today dealt with wait times for audiology services, so I have some questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services. Wait times of 70 weeks for children are simply unacceptable. Can the Minister explain how this acute problem of wait times for audiology, especially children, is being addressed? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackson Lafferty

Masi. Minister of Health and Social Services.

Glen Abernethy

Glen Abernethy Great Slave

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yes, there are significant wait lists for audiology. We have actually done a number of things to try to reduce that wait list, and the Member has actually identified already that we have put in a third position in audiology. National levels are five audiologists per 100,000 people. We previously had two-and-a-half. Now, we have three, so we are slightly over that. Having said that, we still have significant wait lists.

I have asked the department to begin a review with the NWT Health and Social Services Authority, focusing on wait time and waiting list management within the audiology division. We are hoping to see the results of that review during this fiscal year so we can continue to work to make improvements and reduce some of the wait times for our residents seeking audiology. Mr. Speaker, I just want to be very clear on this: where there are urgent needs, priority needs, those individuals see the audiologist very quickly. It's where individuals are further down in the priority list or do not have needs that are very urgent where we are definitely having some difficulty getting them in within the timelines we have established.

Kevin O'Reilly

Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake

I want to thank the Minister for that. I have characterized the audiology wait times as unacceptably high, especially for children. It's my understanding that long audiology wait times can correlate with loss of cognitive function. It's not clear whether there are any professional national or international standards for waiting times for audiology. Can the Minister tell us whether there are any standards for audiology wait times and how we compare to other jurisdictions?

Glen Abernethy

Glen Abernethy Great Slave

While there has been some work conducted by national committees of volunteers established by the pan-Canadian alliance to establish some benchmarks, there are no published standards for audiology wait times in Canada. I do know a cross-jurisdiction comparison, as I have already indicated, shows that there are about five audiologists required per 100,000 people. In the Northwest Territories, we have three, which is slightly higher than that level, but one of those positions is new. I did hear the Member in his statement indicate some pessimism that it's going to make a difference, but we are trying to make those improvements by bringing in an additional position. We are optimistic that we will be able to see some results.

The NWT has established some standards for all of our rehabilitation services based on a scale of 1 to 5: priority 1, 72 hours; priority 2, 10 business days; priority 3, one month; priority 4, two months; priority 5, four months. I can say that, in the priority 1 and 2 areas, we are meeting those levels. I can't say the same for the other priority levels, and those are the areas we are trying to address, and I think those are the areas that the Member is asking about. So we are working to make improvements in those areas.

Kevin O'Reilly

Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake

I want to thank the Minister for that response. I mentioned the obvious fact that vacant positions bring savings in salary expenditures. I also recommended that these unexpended funds should be devoted to locum positions, wherever possible, to reduce wait times. Can the Minister explain whether unexpended salary dollars for audiology can be used for locum positions, and whether this is common practice for other GNWT medical services?

Glen Abernethy

Glen Abernethy Great Slave

We use locums throughout our system on many different occasions, and we fund those locums through vacancies and through other unexpended salary dollars. We have brought in some audiology staff to provide some locums. We have also had some incredible difficulty finding people to come in and provide some of that backfill for us. We went for an extended period of time last year where we were actually unable to find somebody to provide that backfill. So I think there are some challenges at a national level to find individuals, but, yes, we absolutely use some unexpended dollars to provide locums if and when we can find them.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackson Lafferty

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.

Kevin O'Reilly

Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake

Merci, Monsieur le President. Thanks again to the Minister for that. We actually did take one of those locums in, and they did house-sit for us at one point, so just so you know. The Minister has often talked about the benefits of system transformation, including standardized information collection and analysis. Can the Minister tell us whether and when we can expect wait-time public reporting for audiology and indeed a comprehensive selection of medical services offered across the NWT?

Glen Abernethy

Glen Abernethy Great Slave

The move to a single-authority model here in the Northwest Territories, recognizing that we still have two outside the system although they are working closely with the system, has really provided us with an opportunity to start having that discussion and actually do the work to develop some territorial standards and some abilities to track information on a consistent basis. Which is great because we have had information, but it's never been presented or collected in the same way, so it's never been able to be a comparator.

The NWT Health and Social Services Authority is working to standardize data collection in the territory, which is obviously the first step of being able to produce reliable performance data. The authority anticipates being able to publish performance data either late in this fiscal year or early in the next fiscal year. I think this will be important for us, both in the department, in the authority, but in this House, to help us start making some evidence-based decisions on where some of our resources need to go. It's incredibly important data. I want to see it, I know you want to see it, I know Members want to see it, so we will continue to work to get it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackson Lafferty

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Sahtu.

Daniel McNeely

Daniel McNeely Sahtu

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Further to my Member's statement on the issue of operational progress for the Sahtu health and long-term care facility, my question is: can the Minister of Health and Social Services provide an update on the employment positions created by this impressive building? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackson Lafferty

Masi. Minister of Health and Social Services.

Glen Abernethy

Glen Abernethy Great Slave

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, with the creation of the new Norman Wells long-term care facility, which I had the honour of visiting with the Member opposite for the grand opening, 37 positions were created the for this long-term care facility. Currently, as of today, we have 35 of those positions filled. We have one nursing clinical coordinator, seven LPNs, 12 resident care aides, three relief resident care aides, one clerk, one activity rehab aide, six-and-a-half housekeepers -- I am not sure how we have half a housekeeper -- one-and-a-half cooks, and three cooks' assistants. There are still two positions for staff people, but we are confident that we now have enough staff in that facility to open the next wing, and we are anticipating the opening of that wing at the end of this month.

Daniel McNeely

Daniel McNeely Sahtu

The Minister must have a mirror on the wall. That was leading to my next question on when can we expect the second wing to open up. Adding to that question: when can we see the elderly clients moving into the second wing once it's in operation?

Glen Abernethy

Glen Abernethy Great Slave

Obviously, we are hoping to open the next wing by the end of the month, so we should start seeing some of our residents moving into that facility in early November. There are a couple of things we want to do over the remaining couple of weeks of this month. We want to make sure that all of our staff are getting the proper orientation, that they are getting the proper training, that they get an opportunity to get into the wing, into the facility, so they see how the facility operates, and getting the other local training or specific job training that they need in order to provide a safe environment, a safe home, for the residents of that incredible facility.

Daniel McNeely

Daniel McNeely Sahtu

As I live in Norman Wells, I have seen the change and I have seen in particular the changed contributions created by this building, particularly with the staff and the employment and the incoming families that took the opportunity of employment. Now, adding to that: training, in general an important element for sound administration, what plans are in place or going to be in place for the staff created by the institution?

Glen Abernethy

Glen Abernethy Great Slave

I am not 100 per cent sure I understand the question, but I will do my best. At a territorial level, we do have some standards and standard protocols that we are putting in place at a territorial level, which all of the regional operations have to adhere to when it comes to things like plans of care and different things like that. In-house, there will be some local training, there will be some local policies and procedures that are put together by the staff of that authority. They obviously have to be consistent with the territorial policy and standards, but there is an opportunity to do some custom design, as well. Every building has its own little unique features. This one is no exception. They will certainly ensure that they are providing the best services they can out of their facility.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackson Lafferty

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Hay River North.