Alfred Moses

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Members, I would like to introduce and recognize my nephew, Mr. Dawson Kovacs, who recently achieved a gold medal at the NWT Skills Competition in the area of safety and he’s actually en route right now to the nationals to compete in Mississauga.

At this time, I would like to wish all delegates of the Northwest Territories a great time and best of luck at the nationals where they are heading off tomorrow. Welcome, Dawson.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This motion was one of really good discussion and debate in terms of whether or not we want to compensate non-medical escorts.

As you already know, we go through the budget session and we see the costs that are associated with medical travel, and they are very high and that’s one of the areas that we’re already exhausting a lot of our financial resources on medical travel and trying to find ways that we can mitigate that and still provide the services to residents of the Northwest Territories.

Aside from that, if you look at all the work that this government and...

The reason I asked the last question is I had a couple of constituents who did make a trip to one of our boarding homes that we offer services to and they both ended up falling and getting hurt in the same room. They ended up having to stay longer than they had to. In one case, the individual couldn’t even go to his initial appointments and had to get care and treatment for a more serious issue that occurred in the boarding home. Then subsequently, I had another individual, same facility and had the same issue brought forth where they ended up having to stay and medical travel had only paid so...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Being that we’re wearing these purple boutonnieres today to raise awareness about elder abuse, I have questions today for the Minister of Health and Social Services. I also just want to thank him for supplying this to raise that awareness today in the House.

When we send some of our senior population out for medical services, whether they go to Edmonton or come to Yellowknife, does the department or the health authorities monitor our senior population when they travel outside of the Yellowknife or from the small communities to Yellowknife? How do they monitor their...

Thank you, Madam Chair. The Standing Committee on Social Programs conducted its public review of Bill 24, An Act to Amend the Student Financial Assistance Act, on May 27, 2014. A clause-by-clause review was held the same day. The committee thanks the Minister and his staff for presenting the bill.

The purpose of the legislation is to ensure ongoing financial aid to students. The bill increases the maximum aggregate for principal amounts outstanding for all loans to $45 million for 2014-2015 and subsequent years.

Following the committee’s review, a motion was carried to report Bill 24, An Act to...

Mr. Speaker, the photo therapy from the BiliBlankets actually helps reduce the bilirubin that is built up when the decrease in red blood cells happen. If there is no immediate action taken, that build-up of the bilirubin can become very harmful to the infant. Hence, we have the medevacs.

The cost of the BiliBlanket is about $4,000. If you put the costs associated with a medevac, which is thousands of dollars, why wouldn’t the Minister look at purchasing more BiliBlankets through the Northwest Territories rather than continue to possibly send more medevacs out? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On February 25, 2013, I asked questions to the then Minister of Health and Social Services regarding BiliBlankets for babies and the lack and shortage of BiliBlankets that we have throughout the Northwest Territories. The questions came because we had a medevac in Inuvik at the time, and the family was concerned that if another baby had come while they were using the BiliBlanket, what would have happened to the other baby.

BiliBlankets are used when a baby is born and has yellow jaundice. For those of you who don’t know what jaundice is, jaundice occurs when there’s a...

Just in terms of the information the Minister is seeking and mentioning that he’s going to commit to, I just want to confirm commitment that he will get a full inventory of BiliBlankets that we have in the Northwest Territories and for the regions and whether he will look at doing something in the smaller communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am following up to my statement today. I have questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services. As I stated in my Member’s statement, the last time I brought this issue up with jaundice and the lack of a BiliBlanket being available or having an extra one on hand at the Inuvik Regional Hospital was brought up in February 2013. I was wondering what kind of updates have been happening since then in terms of looking at securing extra equipment such that somebody who does come in that needs a BiliBlanket that we have one extra one on hand. Can I ask the Minister...

Thank you. I think there are a lot of people in the Northwest Territories, especially the families, as well, would like to see that monitoring program in place to help those that are battling addictions of these pain killers and affecting their lives.

The Minister also mentioned a working group. Can we get a timeline as to when that working group will first be meeting and when they’ll get together to start looking at possibly developing a strategy and looking at areas to develop these guidelines on the monitoring and the tracking of these prescription drugs and looking at some of this...