Alfred Moses

Sorry, Mr. Chair, Mr. Bromley asked the questions that I was going to ask. Thank you.

I did make reference to reports, but I didn’t ask the question specifically on the reports. I asked the question: Is the Minister willing to work with these NGOs that are providing good services and programs on a very stretched dollar? Would he be willing to work with them, provide funding dollars so they can provide more adequate and appropriate services for those people that are in need in the regional centres, here in Yellowknife, and doing the work in the NWT? Would he commit to working with the NGOs… Not work with them, support them financially so they can provide the services. I’m not...

How about the regulations? The Minister said he was going to change some of the standards earlier, in the discussions earlier today. I think that is going to have an effect on regulations. And when it has an effect on regulations, there’s going to be something in there that’s going to have an effect on the act. I just want to get confirmation if the Minister feels there’s going to be also some changes needed to be put to those regulations.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I had some questions that I wanted to address in terms of one of our priorities in the 17th Legislative Assembly, and that deals with investing in prevention and education and also enhancing our addiction treatment programs. Really, we only have one treatment program in the Northwest Territories and that’s on the K’atlodeeche First Nation Reserve. I wanted to talk to the Minister in terms of what he is doing, just get an update of where we are in enhancing those treatment programs, and also looking at existing infrastructure in the Northwest Territories that will be...

Also for clarification, the Minister had mentioned managing risks, and he made reference to it on more than one occasion. I just want to get clarity on what the Minister means when he says managing risks. In terms of the Midwifery Program, residents of the NWT, the report, all the stakeholders made a recommendation that the community-based model is the most recommended model that we should be moving forward with. They didn’t ask for a consultant. They asked for a community-based model. I want to know what these risks are that the Minister is talking about.

Just continuing on, the Minister mentioned that these standards were made for a community recommendation, and the recommended model that was based out of the midwifery report specifically asks for community-based models. That’s what we’re trying to get started up in Hay River, on-the-ground running. We have the standards.

With that said, can I ask the Minister what standards are the midwives in Fort Smith using right now? If these need to be revised, and it’s a successful program in Smith, and we’re going to support it, what standards are they using in Smith, and why do we have to revise if it...

I think it was during general comments that I made some comments towards the Health Promotion Fund and asked about multi-year funding. The Minister did confirm that there was multi-year funding with no cap on the years that a certain organization can continue to get that funding, and if it is a successful program, it would possibly turn into core programming dollars to fund the successful program. In terms of the Health Promotion Fund, if it hasn’t increased and we do get the same organizations utilizing the same dollars for successful programs, that doesn’t free up any new dollars for any...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I had some questions earlier, so there was a little bit of mix-up over on this side of the table here.

In terms of the telehealth coordinator position, I would like to ask the Minister if he can give us just a quick update on how the telehealth program is being administered, and the effectiveness, and how many of all the communities hooked up to the telehealth system are actually utilizing the telehealth services. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Just staying under this division here, in terms of long-term care, I know in Inuvik we do have a waiting list of seniors that are requesting to get into the long-term care facilities and also looking at funding for the day program use. Kind of two questions, but the first one is: Does the Minister have a plan to address the waiting list of seniors wanting to get into the long-term care unit within the regional hospital? Thank you.

Leading on to the next question, does the Minister know the stats of babies that are born with jaundice in the past fiscal year? Can he provide those kinds of stats?