Glen Abernethy

We do have a contract with the facilities in locations like Edmonton who are providing housing and support to our residents who are down in Edmonton for medical appointments and/or treatment. These individuals help get people to and from appointments and whatnot.

If there’s an incident within the facility, they are bound under the contract to update the department. I don’t have a direct link and conversation with those organizations, but I can be updated by the department as necessary. For the most part, the department will deal with it directly as an administrative or contractual issue.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. With respect to recommendation number six, I agree that all these indicators obviously require more improvement and improved monitoring. I would be happy to sit down with the Standing Committee on Social Programs to identify some appropriate formats and timing that would work for them and the department so that we can continue to provide these updates.

These are hard to recruit positions and I don’t actually know the status today of the individual positions, which ones are vacant, which ones are not, but I’ll be happy to provide that information to the Member and committee right away. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. With respect to recommendation number four, we agree. In the Aboriginal health and community wellness division, new regional positions focusing in on wellness and community development will play a key role in helping communities implement their wellness plans, and also in helping support interagency or wellness committees and in helping our child protection workers stay informed on the different available programs within their region and in their communities. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Babies born in the Northwest Territories utilize the IHP program here that we have in the Northwest Territories. As far as NWT residents that are born outside of the Northwest Territories, I can’t say that they are receiving the IHP because I don’t know what programs exist in other jurisdictions. But I can say that through health clinics and health processes here in the Northwest Territories we do have well-baby clinics, and hearing loss is one of the things that’s assessed for parents and babies. So if somebody is born out of the Northwest Territories and comes back and goes to a...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As a government, as a Legislature we’ve already made prevention and early intervention a priority with a number of actions in both the Early Childhood Development Action Plan and the Addictions and Mental Health Action Plan. As a part of our new action plan for building stronger families that I’d mentioned in the previous motion, we’ll look at more actions focused on family preservation. We will introduce public reporting on key system-wide performance measures over the next couple of months and these will also include several measures related directly to the child and...

Mr. Speaker, we’ll have a better idea what the costs will be and how far $300,000 will go once we’ve actually completed the review. As I’ve said, the provider who has helped us out for the last two months – the NWT Disabilities Council – has pulled together some really good information that’s going to help us inform the way we move forward and as far as what the design will look like and what types of services, if any, are provided in that facility. At that time I’d be happy to come to committee and the public with that information so everybody knows what we’re talking about. But until that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We appreciate the concerns that are raised with respect to the Medical Travel Policy and there’s no question that the Medical Travel Policy needs to be reviewed. In fact, we are currently doing that. One of the areas that we are looking at is the per diem rates that we provide to residents of the Northwest Territories who happen to be on medical travel. But there are many different situations when an individual may be eligible for per diem and may not be eligible for per diem. For instance, if an individual goes south for an extended stay, we try to get them into one of...

Mr. Speaker, I’ve been talking to the chair of the Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority and the CEO, and I’ve asked them to find a solution to the upcoming September. They are working very closely with a number of NGOs in town, trying to find alternate providers, alternative locations.

When we are closer to having a decision with respect to where that location might be and who the provider will be, we’ll be advertising that information throughout Yellowknife and the Northwest Territories,. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document, entitled “Our Elders: Our Communities.” Thank you.