Glen Abernethy

The Med-Response is not a public program. It’s a program for the staff to help coordinate the internal workings of the system to make sure our staff on the front line have the information they need. They will be able to transmit or translate any of the information received from professionals on the line to anybody who happens to be in their health centre or health station. It’s not open to the public. The public aren’t expected to call that number. It is a functional, internal process that helps coordinate all health services in the communities when required by the health practitioners in the...

Since November 30th we have been in a soft launch phase, which is basically a trial phase to work out some of the bugs that we assume would come in with this new state-of-the-art program. We wanted to make sure that we got it right. We have only just recently gone live and we continue to evaluate. There is actually an evaluation mechanism in place to monitor the calls and help us continually improve and evolve as the times change.

In the test phase we coordinated 698 clinical consults from all the authorities; 351 were air ambulance flights. We were actually - I think this is incredibly good...

I’ll commit to get that information on our current vacancies. They change from time to time. But once again, I go back to my previous comments about the specific individual conditions that an individual must have and it’s for services that aren’t available here in the Northwest Territories, you have to meet those conditions. So if we can provide it in the Northwest Territories, we do our best to provide it here in the Northwest Territories. Unfortunately, we do have individuals with incredibly high needs, 24/7 care that we can’t meet. We don’t have the expertise to provide those services here...

Last fiscal year the Members actually requested that we do that work, and the director of territorial services did conduct a review of all the individual files of all of our residents who happen to be in the South looking for similar conditions or similar treatment requirements so that we could repatriate a block of individuals. Unfortunately, the cases are so unique and so many of them are of such high demand we weren’t able to identify a similar group that would be reasonable to repatriate.

But I will say that we do review the files of our individuals biannually to see if there is any...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Thebacha, that Bill 47, An Act to Amend the Child and Family Services Act, be read for the second time.

This bill includes amendments to the Child and Family Services Act that would add a new definition of youth and add provisions respecting the protection and services available to youth, add a new provision requiring the director to notify a child and a child’s parents of the right to be represented by legal counsel, add a new provision providing for mediation, amend the criteria for determining that a child needs protection...

Mr. Speaker, the Department of Health and Social Services is pursuing the 17th Legislative Assembly’s goal of healthy, educated people by investing in prevention, education awareness and early childhood development. By working in partnership with community and Aboriginal governments, non-governmental organizations, health professionals and other stakeholders we can achieve our vision of best health, best care, for a better future.

To help all partners align their efforts, we are holding a Territorial Wellness Gathering from March 3rd to 5th at the Explorer Hotel in Yellowknife. We are...

The department hears from time to time, but we also hear it the other way as well. We have individuals who would prefer to be in southern facilities because they don’t feel that they’re getting the supports they need here, and at the end of the day, we make referrals to the South that sometimes are declined. So it goes both ways, and we do hear from residents on both sides of this issue. As I said, we really would prefer to have those people back here. I hear the Member talking about opportunities for maybe bringing people from the South up, but we would still need incredibly specialized...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There’s a large number of facilities that we actually are utilizing – there isn’t one facility – because the residents who we actually have down at these facilities have a huge range of needs. We have some individuals who require 24/7 with multiple attendees in order to provide them the services that they need.

As far as when I’ve been down to them, I haven’t visited them. I don’t believe standing committee has visited them. But if that is something standing committee is interested in doing, I’m willing to entertain that and have a discussion. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I’ve already committed to working with the Minister responsible for Public Works and Services as well as Hay River Health and Social Services to put together the information that we have so that it can be clearly articulated to the Member as well as to the residents of Hay River who think they may be affected by these changes in infrastructure in Hay River. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In keeping with the direction provided in 2010 which basically established that PWS would be responsible for providing operations and maintenance services to buildings owned and operated by the GNWT, eventually when the building is completed, the maintenance of the new facility, the boilers and structural maintenance will be done by Public Works and Services. We in Health and Social Services believe that there are a number of residual functions, maintenance functions that should be retained by the authority and by the health system, maintenance specific to technical...