Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Midwifery Program in the NWT was first started in Fort Smith in 1993. Soon after, midwifery services also began to be an option in Hay River with a goal to one day service every community in the NWT. Unfortunately, this goal was never fulfilled, and Fort Smith and Hay River remain the only two NWT communities that offer midwifery services.
I support the expansion of the NWT Midwifery Program. I support midwifery to the fullest extent. I appreciate the fact that it offers a culturally relevant birthing option for people who want it. Not everybody wants their newborn delivered in a hospital many kilometres outside of their home communities. I know families who would much prefer to deliver their newborns within their own communities rather than a regional hospital.
In 2017, the Government of the Northwest Territories released a report titled "NWT Midwifery Stakeholder Engagement," which provided 10 recommendations for how the government could improve midwifery expansion in the Northwest Territories. Following this report, the Government of the Northwest Territories accepted all 10 recommendations, which include strengthening the Hay River and Fort Smith programs and establishing a territory-wide program to service Yellowknife as well as the Tlicho and Sahtu regions. Since then, two new positions were funded in 2019 to start up the territorial program in Yellowknife, but only one of them has been filled. An additional part-time position has been funded for Hay River, but no further support has been provided to the Fort Smith program.
Midwifery services have been a long time coming for most communities in the NWT. There is a growing interest among people all across the NWT who would like to utilize midwifery services. Therefore, I certainly hope our government will get a handle on developing the territory-wide program and have it operational as soon as possible. I will have questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services later today. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.