Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my community, there are many elders and residents with disabilities, who continue to live at home. In Inuvik, we do have a homecare program with home-support workers who provide care for these individuals from Monday to Friday, 8:30 to 5:00. The problem with the service that works between these hours is people require help after these hours and on weekends.
Some clients have to look for others to care for them outside these hours, which can lead them to be at risk for elder abuse. Sometimes, they have to be admitted into hospital because there is no one to care for them.
This government has a priority: enable seniors to age in place with dignity. I believe anyone with a disability should be able to remain in their home with dignity, as well. We are in a shortage of long-term care beds in the NWT, and our future calculations show we will continue to have a shortage of beds.
What we should be focusing on is supporting the families and clients who require homecare and home-support service beyond the hours as the program currently runs, to ensure they can age in place and they are less likely to need a long-term care bed. If we focus on this not only in Inuvik but the entire Northwest Territories, our elders and our clients with disabilities could live longer in their homes and their communities with dignity instead of housing them in regional centres or, worse yet, out of the territory.
In my previous position, I was meeting with communities, and one of the elders—we were discussing long-term care. One of the comments that they made is: going to long-term care, they feel like we're sending them to storage lockers or storage units. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will have some questions for the Minister later today.