Glen Abernethy

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A number of the programs that we deliver are not age specific. The NWT Helpline is available to youth. We have some specific suicide intervention programming and training that we’re trying to get into the schools and I believe we’ll be able to get into a number of the schools this year. There’s a number of programs that are available for youth, but all the programs are available for youth as well. Thank you.

There are many reasons why there could be high rates of overtime in a community and the impacts of that overtime are certainly something that we need to be conscious and aware of on our staff, and we do have a Collective Agreement that articulates clearly how much time a person put in. There are mandatory rest periods and all these other things to ensure people are getting the down time that they need.

But the Member is right. Once we’re doing this work, depending on where we see the high rates of overtime, it should be able to help us focus in and start asking questions about why, what’s going...

Thank you. The Healthy Family Program will be moving to Tuk in ’15-16. It was based on a supp that occurred in ’14-15. The planning is occurring now, but there will be a Healthy Family Program in Tuk in ’15-16. I’d just like to add, that’s in partnership with the IRC. As I say often, a lot of these programs really benefit from partnering with community governments, Aboriginal governments as well as other people throughout the Northwest Territories. Partnerships really make these programs better and this particular one in Tuk is being done in partnership with the IRC.

The Member may remember that during the initial Caucus meetings of the 17th Assembly, the supplemental health benefits were actually not one of the priorities that were identified. A number of priorities were identified by Caucus. We are working on those priorities right now. We are making significant progress on all of them. This is not something that’s gone away. This is something that I think is incredibly important and I’d like to see as part of the transition documents into the 18th Legislative Assembly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Chair. In addition to the 32 indicators, which are the GNWT indicators, we also do continue and contribute data to other organizations like CIHI that is doing national reporting. Our data is included there where it doesn’t actually identify… When the numbers are too small, they don’t put it in, but where the numbers are enough, they report on those and we contribute regularly to those organizations.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I do want to just articulate quickly that Yellowknife is not the only place where this diabetes program has been going on. Hay River, Fort Smith and Inuvik offer a targeted diabetes education and care program through their authorities by teams of educators that include nurses, nurse practitioners, dietitians and physicians. The Tlicho Community Services Agency, in partnership with the Tlicho Government, is training local diabetes educators to work with their nurse practitioner who will work directly with people diagnosed with diabetes to learn how to manage their disease.

Fun...

It’s my understanding that we actually turned those resources on that particular site over to I think it was the Liidlii K’ue First Nation, but we’ll have to confirm that with the understanding that if we ever wanted to run an on-the-land program in that location we can use those facilities as well. So, honestly, they can use those facilities for anything they need, they don’t need our permission. They can utilize them for any type of programming that they deem as appropriate and reasonable for residents of the Deh Cho. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The individual deficits will become the Territorial Health Authority deficit. It will be one deficit. The Members have asked a number of questions about cost savings and there will be, in certain program areas, an opportunity to save money, which we’ll be able to roll back into the system and we’ll be able to use that to start paying off some of the deficit. We figure it’s about a five-year transition period. We should be able to start knocking that deficit really down.

On top of that, we’ll also be able to really dig into where all the key indicators or the key drivers...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I don’t have that at my fingertips, but I will commit to getting that to the Member and committee. Oh, wait! Yes, we do. For ‘14-15, $100,000; ‘15-16, proposing another $100,000.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We actually provide the supplemental health benefits as per the program and the dollars have remained fairly consistent. I will say that we’re actually doing a bit of an analysis right now because it does appear to be creeping up and the primary result is the aging population. So we will likely be coming to committee for further discussion on the increased costs to the supplemental health benefits. Thank you.