Question 135-20(1): Gender Affirming Healthcare  Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, at this time within the Department of Health and Social Services -- like, within my department, we are, as I mentioned, connecting with the Alberta health department on the proposed policies that Alberta has made. We will continue to keep thos

Question 135-20(1): Gender Affirming Healthcare  Sorry, Mr. Speaker. We are continuing to work with Alberta in -- there's -- nothing has changed, and I want -- I think that's the thing is right now, within our health care system our referral process is to Alberta. There is no change in that referral service. The -- they are sti

Question 135-20(1): Gender Affirming Healthcare  Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, if an out-of-territory referral is made for an NWT resident, including child or youth, and medically necessary service is not available in Alberta, we arrange to have these services made available in other locations in Canada. Thank you, Mr. S

Question 135-20(1): Gender Affirming Healthcare  Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to assure the NWT residents that healthcare services for transgender individuals, including children and youth, will continue to be available under our existing model as there -- at this time we are still utilizing the same referral pla

Question 124-20(1): Extended Health Benefits  Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I will not hold up this policy any longer. The changes will be implemented on September 1st. You know, we will be monitoring the program and, you know, if there are people that are impacted, you know, with the changes that are made, I would su

Question 124-20(1): Extended Health Benefits  Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned before, this is not taking away benefits from anybody who was previously covered. In the previous policy, it was outdated and there were -- it was put in place where specific diseases and you had to have a specific disease to fa

Question 124-20(1): Extended Health Benefits  Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the extended health benefits policy addresses gaps in some of the NWT residents. Like I mentioned that they did not have services. It's not taking away any benefits from anybody. The policy before, you had to fall under a specific disease. Sen

Question 124-20(1): Extended Health Benefits  Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you for the Member for being able to have this conversation. And I was. I was a Member of the Standing Committee on Social Development, and we did make -- we did have lots of consultations on this. And what we -- we did reduce the costs. Like, wi

Question 123-20(1): Healthy Living in Northwest Territories Communities  Mr. Speaker, I just mentioned it. I mentioned it in this House. I mentioned it before I got here. I think one of the things that in order for us to be able to tackle the mental health issues that we all have stressed in this House is collaboration with our communities, collaborat

Question 123-20(1): Healthy Living in Northwest Territories Communities  Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I mean, I can -- we have health centres. We have staff within those health centres. We have community health representatives in the communities. There are -- we provide information. We work with -- in collaboration with Indigenous governments.

Question 118-20(1): Pharmacists' Scope of Practice  Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the work required to bring regulations in is a minimum of two years. What we are projecting is a 2025 come-into-force date for the pharmacy regulations, and we are very pleased with the support and commitment of the pharmacists' working group

Question 118-20(1): Pharmacists' Scope of Practice  Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the scope of practice being considered is in line with the scope of other jurisdictions. The work will hopefully align the Northwest Territories with best practice and establish standards with the rest of Canada provides practitioners and pati

Question 118-20(1): Pharmacists' Scope of Practice  Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for the question. An advisory committee has been established with the pharmacists appointed by the NWT Pharmaceutical Association to collaborate with the department officials. The advisory committee operates under clear terms of

Minister's Statement 24-20(1): Health Human Resources Recruitment and Retention  Mr. Speaker, the Government of the Northwest Territories continues to work to address the national shortage of health care professionals that has led to service reductions and system impacts not only in the NWT but across the country. Post-pandemic, this shortage has only intensi

Question 111-20(1): Provision of Health Services to Nunavut Clients  Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to thank the Member for a lot of these questions because I don't go that far down into operations when -- you know, with all of this. But I do know that, you know, if -- I don't believe we're sending any audiologists to Nunavut but I