Glen Abernethy

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We work closely with the Foster Family Coalition. If that issue is brought to us by committee or by them, we will certainly look at it, Mr. Speaker.

As I’ve already indicated, our policy doesn’t currently do that, but we are willing to reimburse if a second opinion is determined to be necessary upon completion of the second opinion. I have already indicated it is part of the medical travel modernization and this is something we’re looking at. We need to make sure we are detailed on this assessment because not everyone needs a second medical opinion and we want to be careful about how far we put ourselves out there financially. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Since the Minister made his initial set of questions in 2013, we have hired a clinical advisor within the Department of Health and Social Services who is helping us to determine or quantify some of these results and questions in these areas. I just want to be clear to the Member, in some complex areas, medical diagnoses, some patients clearly would like to get a second opinion from another doctor. Doctors will respect a patient’s request, reasonable request, for a second opinion from a physician of the patient’s choice. This is consistent or is straight from the...

The Social Envelope Committee of Cabinet meets on a frequent but not scheduled basis and we talk about topics that have come up either in the House or directly from other individuals from outside of the government itself, and we’re topic based. We have had issues or topics specific to seniors but we don’t have a seniors standing agenda item.

As the Minister responsible for Seniors, like I said, I do have a lot of different groups, different seniors’ societies coming to me on a regular basis with issues that are cross-departmental and I do bring those forward to the respective departments and...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I would just like to take another opportunity to thank standing committee for all their hard work on this bill. I know it was a significant amount of work. I would also like to thank the department and all the staff who worked on this. They did a significant amount of work and a significant amount of analysis in order to get this right, so I’d like just to take this opportunity to thank all the staff here as well as the staff in the department and the standing committee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m not sure there are enough minutes on the clock to outline all the things the Department of Health and Social Services in addition to the Housing Corp, Education, Culture and Employment and all the other departments are doing to support seniors. But I will go into a few of the items that the department is undertaking.

We do have Our Elders, Our Communities, which is a framework for action on improving the results for seniors in the Northwest Territories. Our Elders, Our Communities outlines priority areas that will be used to guide future programming and design for...

I would, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The department and Stanton recognize the importance of culture in health care and works to incorporate Aboriginal wellness programs into the delivery of health care services.

The department and Stanton have planned for the continued delivery of Aboriginal wellness programs within the hospital as part of the technical and program renewal of Stanton. However, we also recognize that a stand-alone wellness centre could accommodate traditional activities and act as a gathering place for patients, family and friends. Some aspects of Aboriginal wellness cannot be accommodated...

Of course this is something that has come up in our discussions around child and family services from standing committee as well as the public and is something we are already working on. I would be happy to share that information with the Member once we have concluded our review. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Of course not, but I’m seeing something come from committee with the full support of committee on that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.