This is page numbers 4401 - 4448 of the Hansard for the 19th Assembly, 2nd Session. The original version can be accessed on the Legislative Assembly's website or by contacting the Legislative Assembly Library. The word of the day was know.

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Rocky Simpson

Rocky Simpson Hay River South

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I didn't really have any comments. But I guess listening to my colleagues and reflecting on, you know, some of the people I know, some of the things that have happened in the past. You know, my own sister, for instance, she was diagnosed with cancer at the last minute after a few years of going to doctors and, you know, and passed away, you know, two months after that. So, you know, the issues here are, you know, small communities and even regional centres and whatever, but I think it comes down to, you know, Indigenous peoples.

You know, we have -- like, there's a lack of doctors, lack of nurses. We have restrictive policies. We see misdiagnoses. We have -- you know, there's a lack of culturally appropriate services, lack of understanding of Indigenous peoples. You know, there is some racism as well. And all this affects the way, you know, medicine and health is dispensed. And I think that, you know, it's time that we took a hard look at how we're -- you know, how we're treating and, you know, the people of the Northwest Territories when it comes to health because, you know, like I've always said we've got one life to live, and I think it's very important that we do everything we can, everything in our power, to make sure that every person is treated with respect and gets the help they need.

Again, you know, this government is in charge of health. This is where the dollars come. People have nowhere else to turn. And, you know, when they start coming to us, you know they're lost. You know that we're probably their last -- you know, their last hope for some type of help. So, you know, I support -- and therefore I support this motion. And, you know, I think we all see that there's, you know, pitfalls and downfalls within health care for Indigenous peoples. But there's pitfalls and downfalls in all areas. And this is one of them. And this is an important one because, again, it's a matter of life and death. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Member for Hay River South. To the motion? Member for Great Slave.

Katrina Nokleby

Katrina Nokleby Great Slave

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I may not be a small community MLA but what I am is an MLA that listens. And as a result, I do speak with a lot of people from across this territory who share with me their stories. And oftentimes I'm told that they've been told to come to me because their own Member doesn't listen to them. And as a result, I've now find myself in a situation where because I care so much about the people in this territory that I'm struggling to deal with the stories that I'm hearing and the trauma that I'm hearing our people are experiencing on a daily basis.

And when it comes to medical care and health care, there's nothing scarier in the world than facing a medical crisis and it being unknown.

Mr. Speaker, I've been in that situation time and again, and I'm currently waiting in that situation. However, I can't imagine now being someone from a small community and being turned away when I come to say something isn't right and I don't feel well.

So Mr. Speaker, I've stood up here before to stand in support of my small community colleagues. I will stand up here again today. As they spoke, I sat here and nodded along. Everything that they've said, I feel in my heart. I'm sure the rest that continue on to speak after me, I will feel the same way. I couldn't support this motion more, and I thank my colleague for bringing it forward. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Member for Great Slave. The motion is in order. To the motion? Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes.

Lesa Semmler

Lesa Semmler Inuvik Twin Lakes

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I too am in support of this motion. As everybody here knows, my past experience as a registered nurse. I am still a registered nurse. You know, I have many past colleagues who've worked in these health centres. I've sat on hiring committees that hired nurses, you know, in these small communities. And these nurses are trained to be -- most of the nurses that are trained in the communities are hired, they're trauma nurses. They're emergency nurses. Some have community health experience but because of the lack of nursing experience, they mostly are trauma, ICU, you know, nurses because they need to be able to deal with the emergencies in the health centres as they come as they are the only ones there to deal with them. You know, and I've raised this in the past that, you know, in our small communities, we don't have specific designated home care nurses, health promotion nurses, public health nurses, mental health nurses. We don't have them. That one nurse is everything. And when you're dealing with a community that is short staffed, you know, the nurses are -- I know that they're probably -- they're working. They wouldn't become a nurse if they didn't care. But there is a difference between being in a health centre and working overtime, constantly tired, patients coming in, you know you don't have the equipment that is needed. You know, I don't know if there's more that we can do but, you know, the thing is is I think there's a barrier when it comes to medical travel. Because when we talk about some of these appointments or some of these clients that are going to the health centres, you know, they can't just ask for a second opinion when there's only one nurse there and the other one can't come in because they're on downtime and they're on mandatory downtime, you know. They can't get a doctor's opinion right now. So we're not allowing them to fly in to see doctors. Especially, you know, when I think of the studies that have been done in Aklavik and in the Sahtu on all the cancer because of the high rates of cancer coming out of those communities and now we're seeing, you know, like my colleague said, you know, the gentleman that went to the news that said it was too late. You know, he arrived too late. The reason a lot of our people arrive too late is they don't have trust in the health care system. They don't go to the health care. I lost an aunt because she refused to go to the doctor. And when she finally went to the doctor, she had end stage cancer, you know. I have family members that are dealing with cancer. You know, I've got ongoing family members who have been able to access cancer treatment early because they live in a regional centre. But, you know, Mr. Speaker, in these small communities, they don't have that. They don't have an advocate sometimes too that they can go to. You know, we've stepped ahead and we've got these senior Indigenous patient advocates in our hospitals. We need to do more. We need to make sure there's advocates in our communities or that there's a reasonable place for them to access these advocates to support them. Because, you know, when I'm asking for an elder to -- this is the complaint, I'm bringing it forward, and I'm told well, they can do a complaint through this. Well, they don't use email. And the majority of our elders are Indigenous elders. When we say we got to do this, we got to do this, you know, I hear never mind, it's okay. You know, that's what they do, and then they get sicker.

You know, I mean, Mr. Speaker, your own community has a nurse once a week and during breakup and freeze-up. You know, we know that this is a problem in our small communities that our patients, our clients, our residents, are not able to just access any care. And, you know, I fully support my colleague on putting this motion forward because, you know, I know we can't put a doctor in every community but what can we do to support these nurses and these community residents so that they are being able to access the care in a culturally safe way and try to make sure that they're being heard, and they're not being turned away, or is it they feel? Because I can't -- you know, because that's the thing. Is myself, even if I was working in a health centre, you know, and I did something, a lot of times people don't sit down and explain everything that they're doing. It's such a rush. We need to take that time with our clients. They don't understand. They're afraid of the system. And they won't ask questions. It's not polite. We don't ask questions. We just let you do what you got to do and we'll get out of your hair. You know, that is -- especially with elders.

So we need to understand that culture. We need to sit down and explain and ask them if they understand and give them their options. If they don't agree with what care that they're getting, what their options are. You know, these are the things that we need to make sure. And this motion will hopefully start to turn the department's way of looking at how we can support small communities better. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes. The motion is in order. To the motion? Member for Monfwi.

Jane Weyallon Armstrong

Jane Weyallon Armstrong Monfwi

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I do feel the same, and I do support the motion as well. And I know that it is about time, Mr. Speaker, that we start paying attention to small communities, give them some recognition that they do lack lot of services, especially in health care. It needs attention. It needs to be improved.

We have some communities with no nurses or some do not have any health centre. So that needs to be -- so we need to recognize those communities as well. There are people living in those communities. And people that are living in the communities are mostly Indigenous. So that's what I do support and we do need -- we need to do something about it, Mr. Speaker.

And as a result of the lack of health care, a lot of services that we're lacking in the communities, a lot of community members are moving away.

For example, dialysis. We have some community members that are relocating from their community, wherever they are from, maybe from Tuk, from Gameti, whenever, they are relocating to Yellowknife to have access to that dialysis machine. And these people are moving away from their family, from their home, from their culture, their tradition, their language. I mean, that's another burden on these people who are not used to those lifestyle.

So for that reason, I really do support, and I'll tell you that, too, I do agree. Tylenol are overprescribed in many of the communities. And I also do have some community members, Tylenol could not fix the problem that they were going through. By the time they paid their own way to get to Yellowknife, it was too late. They already had stage 4 cancer.

So things like this are happening too often. So I think that it is about time that we have lot of services. We need to improve the services in the healthcare system, in healthcare system in the communities.

I cannot stress it enough that we need to do more with the small communities. If not, more of those community members are going to move to Yellowknife and they are going to become your responsibilities, the Yellowknife MLAs. So are you guys ready to receive them? If not, then we need to do something about the small community healthcare system. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Member for Monfwi. The motion is in order. To the motion? Member for Frame Lake.

Kevin O'Reilly

Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the mover, the Member for Deh Cho, and the seconder, the Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh, for bringing the motion forward.

I want to acknowledge what I've heard from small community MLAs over my six years as an MLA here in the House and in committee about issues around healthcare in small communities. At the same time, though, I want to recognize the work and initiatives by the department and the staff. I think we are doing some things in these areas. You know, we worked together to get funding for Indigenous patient advocates. I know the department is working on that cultural safety. Change is slow, but I think this motion is another step in making the change that we all want, and I look forward to the response from the other side, from our Cabinet colleagues. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. The motion is in order. To the motion? Member for Kam Lake.

Caitlin Cleveland

Caitlin Cleveland Kam Lake

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I too would like to thank the Member for the Deh Cho for the hard work that he put into this motion and for bringing it forward here today.

I want to reflect on something that the Member for Monfwi said. And the Member for Monfwi reflected on services not being available in communities and the result of that hollowing out small communities.

Hollowing out small communities is not true reconciliation. True reconciliation is ensuring that Indigenous communities have the services that they need and the resources that they need to continue to practice their culture and to continue to be in the North and to continue to be in their home communities. A lot of the work that this Assembly is doing is trying to create that space for communities to continue and communities to thrive. And so healthcare is a huge part of our communities and access to healthcare is so incredibly important to our communities.

One of the things that in social development we hear most often is about services and resources being culturally safe, and that goes beyond the way that policies are written. It is in how people and what they are saying is received and how they are listened to. And how that support is provided and heard.

And what I'm hearing here today is my colleague saying that it's not okay and that their communities are not being adequately serviced and resourced, especially when it comes to healthcare.

As our population ages, Mr. Speaker, we're going to see more and more chronic illness in our communities. And so this is an opportunity to listen and receive what MLAs from small communities are saying to us and to make changes to get it right.

This motion is an opportunity to listen, receive, and reflect, and be leaders in remote Indigenous healthcare in the Northwest Territories. And we owe it to the people of the Northwest Territories to do better if that's what they're asking for. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. The motion is in order. To the motion? Member for Yellowknife North.

Rylund Johnson

Rylund Johnson Yellowknife North

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to thank all of my colleagues for speaking to this motion and bringing it forward. I just also would like to rise in support. I think it is clear that many in our small communities don't have trust in our current healthcare system. And I think we always have to keep that top of mind.

I'm well aware that in many ways Health is by far our largest budget, and it is going through a deficit reduction exercise right now and I fear, when we look at models that we've seen in other jurisdictions, rural healthcare is always a potential target from that deficit reduction. Closing health centres has happened in many areas across other jurisdictions, and I think this motion is just a reminder to Health that we have to adequately resource to make sure that our health system is equitable, and that's going to take some hard conversations about other budget priorities. But our small community healthcare could not be at the expense. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. The motion is in order. To the motion? Member for Thebacha.

Frieda Martselos

Frieda Martselos Thebacha

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I too will get up in support of the motion.

This motion is to address the healthcare deficiency in small communities; the access to doctors, specialists must be addressed.

Personally I've always addressed each concern brought to my attention from my own constituents to the Minister's office. I just want to mention that 99 percent of the answers, in the replies, have always been positive. And I want to thank the Office of Health and Social Services for that.

The Indigenous file for small communities is extremely important. And the leaders at all the former meetings, in my 14 years as chief of Salt River, have always brought this to the table, especially at the Dene Nation meetings and Metis Nation or any of those. And I want to thank MLA Bonnetrouge for this motion. And I know it's very dear to our heart. And for that reason, I will be supporting the motion. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Member for Thebacha. The motion is in order. To the motion? Minister responsible for Health and Social Services.

Julie Green

Julie Green Yellowknife Centre

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the points that are being made today. It is a priority of the health system to ensure that people have equitable access to safe and effective healthcare. I know that isn't the case all the time. But "all the time" is certainly what we are striving for.

It's important to say that we are facing an unprecedented crisis of staffing in our healthcare system. We have vacancies across the board. We have, coming out on Friday, our health human resources plan, which will discuss some of the medium and long-term initiatives that we plan to take to increase staffing. But in the short term, we are still very short staffed and I anticipate that that will continue through the summer.

This is being portrayed as a racial issue, and I understand why that is. I've done the Living Well Together training and so have 92 percent of my colleagues in the department and 61 percent in the health authorities. And there is a segment of Living Well Together that deals with the trauma that was caused by what were then called "Indian hospitals" where people went, usually for tuberculosis treatment, and often stayed over the very long term until they felt they were strangers to their communities and cultures.

So we have a division within the Department of Health and Social Services called community culture and innovation. It is staffed primarily by Indigenous people. And I feel that they have done good work over the last nine years to assist us in understanding systemic racism and developing materials that help us to become culturally safe in the interactions that we have.

I want to say that the health and social services authorities were accredited in 2019, following an extensive process of both internal and external review, and that the next review is scheduled for next year.

We provide surveys; they are online. I heard that people don't always use online. But we have recently closed the patient experience questionnaire, and I hope that we'll have some good learnings from that.

We recently put out our community counselling questionnaire, and I was very pleased to learn that 73 percent of the people surveyed who completed the survey were satisfied or very satisfied with the care they received.

So Mr. Speaker, we hear the concerns that are raised here. We will provide a response to the motion. Today, the Cabinet will be abstaining in this vote. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Minister. The motion is in order. To the motion? I will allow the mover to do closing comments.

Ronald Bonnetrouge

Ronald Bonnetrouge Deh Cho

Mahsi. Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. I would like to say a big mahsi to my colleagues for your unwavering support for small community issues.

Excuse me.

This is about the concerns of the residents of the Northwest Territories, the many people that have been affected by the lack of quality healthcare. That is the big issue. Not a question there. It's an insult. And I really hope there's sincerity on that side of the House for our issues, because it won't go away. We understand there might be shortages. But there is always that trip you can take to Ottawa, because healthcare is supposed to be looked after by both the governments, the GNWT and the federal government. And we need the Ministers on that side to really hammer home that issue in Ottawa.

You know, this is about the concerns of the residents of the NWT. I'm just a voice for them. It's not about me; I don't look for glory or nothing. This is real. I'd like to say mahsi again to my colleagues for all their positive comments and support. Mahsi.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Member for Deh Cho. The motion is in order. To the motion?

Some Hon. Members

Question.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Question has been called. Members, pursuant to Rule 10.3(1), a recorded vote is required. The clerk shall call on each Member by riding name to cast their vote, starting with the mover, those participating remotely and those participating in the Chamber in the order of their seats. When the clerk calls on you, please state whether you are for, against, or abstaining from the motion.

Recorded Vote
Motions

June 1st, 2022

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Deputy Clerk Of The House Mr. Glen Rutland

The Member for Deh Cho.

Recorded Vote
Motions

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Recorded Vote
Motions

Page 4429

Deputy Clerk Of The House Mr. Glen Rutland

The Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.