Marsi cho, Mr. Speaker. I want to talk about a serious procedural loophole within the Department of Health and Social Services that I believe is endangering many Northerners in our small communities. That, Mr. Speaker, is that many medical nursing staff in our communities are prohibited from responding to emergency medical calls. This is a serious concern.
Mr. Speaker, this procedural gap ultimately showed its shortfalls in the last year alone in my riding. In June of 2020, we lost an elder in Deninu Kue who was in medical distress, and the local nursing staff were bound by policy or procedure and were not able to respond. The elder in question was less than a few hundred metres from the local health centre. More recently, Mr. Speaker, we lost another resident who could very well have been still with us if there was a swift response to attend to their emergency. Again, there was valuable time lost because of response and transportation of a patient to the health centre.
Mr. Speaker, there is a glaring gap within the Department of Health and Social Services. If you were in a small community and called 911 right now for a medical emergency, you would need to be transported by a friend or RCMP, for example, to get the medical attention you would need. That's a problem. I do understand the need to protect our local medical staff to prevent them from being put into compromising situations. However, I strongly feel that Health and Social Services needs to step up their game and work with our communities to help prepare them in what to do in the event of an emergency.
COVID, I understand, has impacted many of our government initiatives, but we still need to do our very best to ensure that our residents get the best service and attention they can get. Mr. Speaker, I will have questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services at the appropriate time. Marsi cho.