Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As I mentioned, you know, I mean, I've had these discussions on the floor of the House so I'm not denying that, you know, there has been many concerns brought forward. I know that there will -- you know, that the department is doing work. I know that there was an employee satisfaction engagement done and the results of that will -- you know, will help us guide some of the work. And, you know, we've heard from the Members. We've met -- you know, we've met with some of the Members and some people that are advocating for some of these changes. And, you know, that is one area like I keep staying to my staff that I just want to be able to fix this, you know. And just like everybody else, I want to -- you know, I want people to go to work and be supported. I want people to go to work and feel like they -- you know, that they're -- they want to be there. And so how we get there, it's going to take -- you know, it's not going to happen overnight because this issue didn't happen overnight. It's many years, you know. And I mean, it didn't help us with, you know, the COVID crisis in our health care system across Canada. Not even across Canada, across the world. And so there's many areas that we're looking at to try and increase support to staff, to increase staffing. You know, one of the other Members have raised, you know, international educated nurses. You know, my colleague from ECE, we will be meeting with CAN to look at different ways on how we can support -- you know, what's needed to support that, you know, how can we work -- you know, so there are many things on top of all of the other things in health that we're trying to achieve for residents. And I understand like, we are -- we need good staff and we need happy staff to be able to provide those programs to our residents. So I'm not sitting here going to say that everything's perfect, and I know things need to be done. And we've got some plans and we've heard some recommendations. And how we get there, I think it's going to take a little bit of everything. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Frame Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And, you know, I think we've got a big budget to get through here. I'm not going to belabour this point. I do appreciate the Minister acknowledging the problem. I do want to see the department, you know, actively working on finding solutions, trying things. You know, we've talked a lot in the business plan about taking risks, breaking status quo. You know, don't be afraid to try things. And if it's not working, try something else. I can just commit to continuing to keep the pressure on as long as I'm hearing from constituents about these ongoing issues.

Mr. Chair, I'm not going to repeat items that I think have already been raised by my colleagues and spoken to by the Minister. But I just want to say I strongly support midwifery in my community and support many of the comments raised by my colleagues on health. But I'm going to leave it at that for this page. Thanks.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Sahtu.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. When I look at the programs and the funding and the grants coming in there, it sort of encourages me to say here's solutions. As I mentioned several times here, I'm quite -- I would say quite proud about the actions taken by leadership to address the drug issue that we're experiencing right across the territory. But in our area, the leaders are grasping the problems and taking a hold of it and doing some planning and having some consultations. And this coming after the weekend, they're going to listen from the youth. So the youth is going to raise their list of priorities, and it's going to be incorporated into this plan. So when I look at this funding, I see a lot of good supports there for resources to support the plan of transition to eliminate the plague problems. But these problems are costing this government, I would say, millions of dollars. And if we have to pay for a medevac, I don't know how much that cost is, but I can only imagine it's costing the government quite a bit just for the airplane, not to mention the staff and the treatment.

And to help be more efficient on medical travel, will the department look at setting up a PY? We used to have -- the Sahtu used to have a medical travel coordinator. Anyway, it was taken and directed back to Yellowknife. But have we got any room for setting up a medical travel coordinator in the Sahtu? Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, at this time I won't commit to that because what I am committed to is -- in the business plan is taking a look at the medical travel and how we move people around is going to -- you know, I'm hoping we'll be able to -- I guess what I want to do is I want to implement, by the end of this government, a better way to move people, a way to make sure that when people have medical travel -- and this is -- you know, are not as stressed about getting the medical travel as they are about having to go to the appointment that they're going for. You know, and I think we've heard that many times and so I won't deny that, you know, that's sometimes the feeling, especially when you're not getting your travel on time or the day before. And we know that this is -- you know, there's many reasons why, you know, our staff are working hard. They have so many medical travel things in front of them. Like I said yesterday, I think our stats are just under 50,000 people we are moving a year. So, you know, with a small team and so, you know, how I hear the Member that if there is -- if a position in Norman Wells is going to better support medical travel and the outcome of this, then you know that -- I can see that being put forward as some of the change. But as of right now, I don't want to commit to any changes and I don't want to put this on any person until we can -- you know, we can really figure out -- and review the program and review how we're moving people in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from the Sahtu.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. And thanks for that encouraging reply by the Minister.

On my last trip, which was a one-way from Norman Wells to Yellowknife, it cost the government $1,800. And there's many cases where medical travel patients are coming here only to find out the appointment wasn't booked but it was booked for a month later, or other cases where people actually told me their experience. So that's why I say it's costing the government because of some mistake that was made and it seems to be quite common for medical travel patients to come to their appointment when, in fact, it was the day before or the day after or next week. So in the meantime, it's costing our government. So if we can look at, as the Minister said, the movement of patients back and forth to their home community -- on the spirit of efficiency, I still recommend having a PY to focus on movement of patients. But I'm encouraged by the Minister saying that she will look at it. So thank you very much there, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Next on my list here I have the Member from the Deh Cho.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question is to the Minister on x-ray machines in small communities. Do all small communities have x-ray machines? Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. All the health centres that have health centre nurses in them do. The health cabins, however, do not. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll go to the Member from the Deh Cho.

Thank you. That's good to know because these x-ray machines help with early detection of illnesses if there's people that have TB, pneumonia, or lung issues, and can save a lot of time from people getting medevaced to Yellowknife or having to come for services here. If their illness is something like pneumonia, it'd just probably have to get them -- I'm not a nurse but I've had pneumonia, so I've had to take antibiotics. But the only time I've got tested for that was here in Yellowknife, so. Yeah, so that's one's that I just needed to know, are all those machines in the communities working and in good working order.

The other one I have is on community services. We're looking at that. And it's good that the department is supporting communities and addictions and stuff like that. Is there a community -- the health doing anything with on-the-land healing? Is that something that this department is working on? Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, just to the first part of the Member's question is x-ray machines maintained. All the x-ray machines are maintained by our biomed and they are -- like, they're all maintained in the communities.

And to the next question, the on-the-land program, health is not running those types of programs. What the Indigenous governments have told us is that to make the funds available and more flexible for them, and so that's where the community wellness and addiction recovery fund it. And so that's where Indigenous governments from the communities can apply to access those dollars. And there is a fund, as I said, is a first come first serve. And so I would encourage, there is a staff member to help in community government, like the Indigenous governments to do their proposals, to work with them, to support them, to access those dollars. So I would encourage the Member to -- you know, to provide that information to their Indigenous governments and their communities. And they can use those for on the land. They can use them for hiring, you know, mental health workers. They can use them to do youth programs, you know, things like that within the community that are targeted for mental health and addictions. Yes, thank you.

Thank you. I'll go to the Member from the Deh Cho.

Thank you for the Minister for that response. Is there a number for the budget and a length of time that they can run these programs? Is there -- like, what's the max for the budget? Thank you.

Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. There was a set amount for regional governments to be able to apply. As a region up until January 31st for multi-year funding. After that -- after April 1st, then it opened up to Indigenous community governments. And so individual Indigenous communities can apply up to 208 per -- that's for the regional. $208,000 a year.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from the Deh Cho.

Thank you. And so that $208,000 a year, that's multi-year funding so they'll get that for three years?