Glen Abernethy

Mr. Chair, I’m sorry the Member is disappointed. We are still interested in discussions with the community. We’ll continue to move forward with the community. We also see an opportunity here, a possible opportunity with the Deline self-government to move forward on this initiative, but at the same time, we still need to make sure that people have the training they need to provide the programs that are required in palliative care.

I have had a conversation with a couple of the individuals that the Member just indicated and I do remember some conversations around some interest in getting a program they would like to propose. We are looking at applications from a number of those individuals. I don’t recall the title or the name, the Tulita On-the-Land Healing Program, but as I’ve indicated, we will look at our files and look for this application and give it due consideration. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you. I know the Member and all Members have expressed frustrations around medical travel in the past. I too have expressed significant frustration around medical travel. I think you’d be hard pressed to find somebody who hasn’t.

Part of the problem that we’ve had around medical travel is the clarity around it. It doesn’t seem to meet some of the people’s needs. With these changes that are coming forward, it will be more clear. We’ll clearly articulate it so it’s understood and applied consistently across the Territories. That in and of itself will reduce some of the complications that we...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. At this point our priority is actually to provide training to our community health nurses so they have the knowledge, skills and ability they need to provide palliative care in the homes, so supporting individuals in their homes as opposed to moving them to a different facility or building. Once we’ve completed that training, we are able to provide palliative support in people’s homes. We’ll be able to assess the effectiveness of that and that will help inform any future direction which could include supporting some palliative beds in some communities throughout the...

The Member has indicated that that particular organization asked us for money and I have checked with the Sahtu Health and Social Services Authority and they indicated that they never had a request and I’ve never had a request to my office asking for money for this particular program. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I’m going to go to the director of finance, Jeannie, on that.

There are number of code whites that occur in Stanton on a fairly regular basis, and as a result of the most recent incidents of violence, I’ve requested that Stanton provide us with a copy of every code white incident report so that we can track them and get a bit of an idea of how often these code whites are occurring. Since we’ve done that, I think it was three weeks ago, I’ve seen three. But the three that I’ve seen have been fairly minor in nature with no injury or damage done. That does not minimize the importance of the issue. It’s starting to give us a good, clear picture of how many...

Thank you. At this point I don’t anticipate a supp. I anticipate the department will be coming back through the business planning process for ’16-17. We’ll have a better idea of what those increased costs or future increased costs may be.

I’m eager to resolve this issue and it is something that I have already discussed at length with the deputy minister of Health and Social Services and we’ve also had discussions with legal.

The issue is it’s not a simple fix, it’s a significant component of the new legislation and it would actually not really fix it if all the other components of the act were still as archaic and bad as they are today.

I want this legislation done. My colleagues on this side want this legislation done. My colleagues on that side want this legislation done, but I believe they want it done right as opposed to...

Thanks, Madam Chair. These are numbers based on budgets provided by the individual authorities, but the Member is correct, we have run deficits in the health authorities in the past. Just for the record, a number of the areas for increase in this particular area include the service centre costs as well as the Microsoft licensing costs, some Collective Agreement costs and other costs that are associated with the health and social services authority funding in the area of administrative support. You’ll notice, as we go through this binder, there’s going to be several areas where money is needed...