David Krutko

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s been six years since the community of Tsiigehtchic has had a nurse in that community. Six years. If you pulled that off anywhere in Yellowknife — shut down one of their clinics for a week — you’d have a protest on your hands. It’s been six years since a nurse has been based in that community for any long period of time. For me, that is the issue we’re dealing with here today.

I’d like to ask the Minister: do you have any idea when they can physically see a nurse in the community of Tsiigehtchic, since they’ve been waiting six years?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is not only affecting my constituency; it’s affecting other regions throughout the Northwest Territories. We have some 28 communities that are struggling with health care systems. We have ten communities that don’t have policing or in some cases a nurse in those communities. I think it’s important that we realize this is a challenge we have to face. Realistically, it comes down to quality of health care and services to all people in the Northwest Territories.

I know you’re going to go around and have consultations and everything else, but for me that’s just another...

Today I would like to speak in regard to health and social services in the Mackenzie Delta. I know I’ve raised questions in this House time and time again, yet with no results in regard to improvements in services and, more important, promoting a healthy environment and protection of our residents and protection of our youth and our seniors in our communities.

When we have a shortage of nurses or in some cases where we have health centres that we build in communities and they’re not functional because we don’t have nurses to operate them, there’s a breakdown in regard to services being provided...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t think we are going to resolve this issue here today, so I would like to ask the Premier if he is committed, before the end of the sitting of this week, to sit down with Members from small communities and put some of these issues on the table and hopefully get the discussions going between himself and Members from small communities. This is definitely affecting the services in our communities, and I don’t think we’re going to be able to resolve it with the present system we have. I would like to ask the Premier for that commitment today.

Mr. Speaker, we have built health centres in our communities. We have built infrastructure in our communities. We have built schools, health centres, municipal offices. Again, the government really knows that by making those capital investments, we expect there will be some services out of those facilities we have in our communities.

I would like to ask the Premier: exactly where is the money, the dollars, going for those communities to operate and maintain those services so that we have a quality or standard of health care services throughout the Northwest Territories for all residents of the...

Mr. Speaker, I don’t know how else to put this. The person is committed. The money is already budgeted for that health centre to operate in regard to its O&M — the cost to operate, the cost of health care — for that community. There are dollars earmarked from this Legislature to run a health centre in Tsiigehtchic.

The community is more than willing to work with the health department to do this, but because the Department of Health or the board in Inuvik, which has 45 vacancies, which they can’t even administer.... They run a deficit.

Mr. Speaker, I’m not too sure how else to put it, but exactly...

Mr. Speaker, like I stated in my earlier question, there was a nurse who basically was there full time about six years ago. She was paid. The money is there for the health centre. She lived in the community for a number of years.

I’d like to ask the Minister: is there that commitment that this position will be committed full time knowing that there’s an individual out there who’s willing to stay in the community for that period of time?

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to go back to item 7.

Again, that is not health service that would improve the quality of life in communities. Having someone go into a community for a couple of hours once a week, in some cases once a month, is not medical service. I don’t know which part of that picture the Minister doesn’t get, but that, to me, is basically not services. I want to actually physically see a nurse operating out of the health centres in our communities. We have built health centres throughout the Northwest Territories, health centres that should be managed by a health professional in that community.

When can we expect to actually...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is directed to the Minister of Health and Social Services. It’s in regard to my Member’s statement on the lack of services in a lot of our communities, especially core services like health care services such as nurses, mental health workers, alcohol and drug workers.

I think it’s very important that this government take this issue seriously. It is having a direct effect not only on our communities but on this government’s ability to deliver other programs and services, as we can see with the major deficits we’re running in different hospitals in different...