Marsi cho, Madam Speaker. Today, I'm going to talk about dental services in the smaller communities. The COVID-19 pandemic has stalled much of our government's programs and services. Even the simple services like renewing your driver's licence, for example, or getting a dental cleaning has become a much more difficult task to complete compared to pre-COVID times.
Just yesterday, Madam Speaker, there was a CBC article published which described an increasingly dire situation regarding dental services for small communities in the NWT. In fact, two of the four communities that were mentioned in this article, Lutselk'e and Deninu Kue, are directly affected by this, and that is not okay with me.
Madam Speaker, the issue is that dentists are simply not being permitted to do their normal work in the smaller communities as they would normally do prior to COVID. Some patients have not seen a dentist since February, and that's almost 10 months ago. This is unacceptable.
Madam Speaker, I'm not the only one who is worried about the situation, but the dental community and even the federal government are concerned about it, too. Dentists want to see and help their patients because that's what they're there for, they made an oath, and that's what other medical professions do. Why are we enforcing some of the most stringent dental guidelines in the country when our small communities have only one treatment room? This is something to consider and unrealistic, I know. There is a capacity issue there, as well.
Madam Speaker, another aspect of this situation I'm concerned about are the medical travel costs of flying all our referred patients from their home communities into Yellowknife to receive dental services. This current system is not cost-efficient and not sustainable for the long term. Therefore, Madam Speaker, I urge our government, our department, to work with the dental community, the federal government, and create a different arrangement for providing dental services to people in the small communities. That's for the remainder of the pandemic, and there are other aspects to think about, such as NHIV and that's another thing to consider, as well. With that, Madam Speaker, I have questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services today. Marsi cho.