Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question. I'm just going to provide a little bit of context to begin with.
I am personally aware of the isolation that occurs as a result of hearing loss and the importance of being able to have some kind of intervention that will reduce that.
We, as the GNWT, provide audiology services to all residents and we are unusual in Canada in publicly funding this benefit rather than having people -- asking people to have it covered through their insurance or out of their own pockets. So we have been challenged to maintain service levels in the NWT because the audiology profession is in high demand.
So with that preamble, we have two audiologists in the NWT at this time. There's one in the Beaufort Delta and there's one at Stanton Territorial Hospital. The wait time for adults is 19 months in the Beaufort Delta and 26 months in Stanton Territorial Hospital.
Now, having said that, we do have a triage system so that if someone experiences sudden hearing loss for no particular reason, they can be seen within a matter of days. Thank you.