Glen Abernethy

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have been working closely with Avens on their desire to increase their facility as well as improve the current facility. We have put together a committed team, a steering committee that consists of the Department of Health and Social Services employees as well as some proponents from Avens itself, and we have contributed $25,000 to this initiative, to Avens, so that they can have their individual participate.

We are doing a number of things, exploring opportunities for funding and trying to come up with the most appropriate way to move forward with the construction of...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. With respect to telehealth and a lot of the other eHealth or e-social services systems that we’re working on, there are a number of things in place and we continue to move forward with a number of initiatives. In this budget you’ll see some money for CFSIS, which is the upgrade of the Child and Family Services Information System which, no doubt the Member knows and we all know, has to be done. It is a critical piece of technical infrastructure that we need to get up and running in a useable way. Not just there but it has to be useable and functional for our staff. It is a...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We are committed to ensuring that our seniors have the beds and the supports that they need in the Northwest Territories. I hear the Member saying that we’re not doing anything, and obviously, she knows I disagree. Today the Housing Corporation has in their budget money to move forward on five independent living homes in the Northwest Territories. That’s new projects and new things that are being done by the Government of the Northwest Territories. We also know that every public housing unit is available to seniors if they qualify and if they wish to use them. We are...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wanted to just mention, but to be clear, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t a project in Simpson with the electrical, mechanical and other issues and some more concerns around infection control and stuff like that and the fact that standards have increased so much since that building was originally built. We still believe that Simpson has to be a priority.

At the same time, the Member has brought up concerns about the health stations that exist, the health cabins/health stations. I’m going to refer to them as health stations. We have two that the Member has addressed. One...

As we move forward with our…(inaudible)…communities what we’re hoping to do is actually enhance services for individuals so that they could stay in their homes. I’ve travelled throughout the Northwest Territories and talked to people in almost every community, actually in every community, including Yellowknife, and what I’ve heard is people want to be able to stay in their homes, in their communities, in their regions for as long as they possibly can. Moving forward, that is part of our priority, but we also know, in time, individuals, even if they want to stay in their own homes, may...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like just a touch of clarity. Health stations and health centres are different things. Is the Member referring to the health station?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. With me today on my right is Perry Heath, director of infrastructure planning; and Debbie DeLancey, our deputy minister.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I have already indicated to the Member, we are going to have a Traditional Foods Facilities Action Plan and Recommendations, January 2015, for review by Regular Members and consideration so that we can move forward and do exactly what the Member is asking us to do. January 15th is well before the writ drops in the 17th Legislative Assembly.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member as well as other Members have actually asked this question before. Following up from those requests for information and the desire to have more traditional foods in our facilities, which we agree is an incredibly important thing to do, our traditional foods help to promote healing, healthy eating and all those types of things. So the Department of Health and Social Services is currently doing some research and developing an action plan to improve the availability of traditional foods within our facilities.

The Traditional Foods and Facilities Action Plan and...

We have gone to the Beaufort-Delta and started having some initial conversations with the people in the health centre there. They raised concerns that are unique to their own hospitals or health centres. We want to make sure that the Midwifery Program works in the regions and communities based on the protocols that already exist in those areas. That would have to be true coming into Yellowknife. We would have to make sure it works in the system and in the infrastructure that we have here.

The Deh Cho is different, once again, in that they don’t actually have a hospital. They have regional...