Glen Abernethy

Mr. Speaker, I’m not comfortable talking about specific individuals, but with respect to the Medical Travel Policy, a recommendation can come from the practitioner. But when it comes to non-medical escorts, there are some guidelines and not all non-medical escorts are approved.

This is clearly an area that needs improvement. We have heard from residents all across the Northwest Territories, that when you’re dealing with chronic conditions like cancer or other issues, you need emotional, compassionate support, and non-medical escorts needs to be reviewed. This is going to be included in the...

Mr. Speaker, further to my Return to Written Questions 11-17(5), 12-17(5) and 14-17(5) I wish to table the following three documents, entitled “Prevalence of “Superbug” Bacterial Infections,” “Housekeeping in NWT Health Facilities,” and “Mental Health and Addictions Financial Summary.” Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I agree with the Member completely. We need to think outside the box and I’m certainly happy to have some conversations with the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, who is responsible for income support. I don’t know if that will work. I don’t know what mechanisms might exist, but I’m certainly willing to have that conversation and that discussion with him. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Once again, I’m not comfortable talking about a specific individual, but we do have a Medical Travel Policy, it is under review. In the future it will address the types of situations the Member is discussing. I’d be happy to sit down with the Member and talk about this particular situation and get the details and have the department get involved, but this is part and parcel with many of the concerns that we’re hearing about medical travel and in particular around escorts and non-medical escorts. This is work that we need to get done. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, there is always an exception process that individuals can access if they feel that they’ve been declined medical travel. It’s not always going to be exactly what the Members want or what the individual residents want, but we do try to meet their challenges and the issues that are coming forward, and we are attempting to find solutions for individuals on non-medical escorts. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, in the last sitting I talked about the schedule for the review of the Medical Travel Policy, and we were hoping to have the base Cabinet policy ready for discussion on March 31st of this year. I did have an opportunity to get briefed by the department and go through that Cabinet policy and I didn’t feel that it was quite right and it needed some additional work, so I’ve actually sent it back to the department.

Between that and some other competing priorities, we are a little behind. I’m hoping to have that Cabinet policy to Cabinet and then to Standing Committee on Social Programs...

We’re definitely breaking new ground in this area and we are working with our partners in the communities as well as across the Northwest Territories and they are working with clinical professionals who have provided more standard, typical type programming in other jurisdictions, as well, in the North. We are going to put a solid evaluation framework around this particular program to make sure that we can assess the on-the-land programs that are being delivered to make sure that as we move forward that any on-the-land program that we are supporting here in the Northwest Territories is...

In the Northwest Territories we want to make sure that our residents have options and choices, which is why we’ve gone with contracts in some southern facilities that provide some high quality programing. We are looking at on-the-land programming for, as I said, things like after-care or for prevention, support of families, and we are looking at a mobile option.

The Member is right; there was a pilot in Nunavut that didn’t work out around mobile treatment, but we are working with some of the southern institutions as well as there are institutions here in the Northwest Territories who have...

This is one of the areas that we’ve had some positive feedback on. We need to figure out ways to expand it out and make it more available. There are all sorts of opportunities here. Telehealth is one example. We have an opportunity to bring people together. I will commit to working with the Members to see what opportunities exist to expand this in the future. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I’ve been the Minister of Health for about four months now, approaching five, and I’ve had this brought up to me several different times, and I personally have had the opportunity to sit down with residents in the Northwest Territories who have experienced cancer who have expressed the exact types of concerns that the Member is bringing up with me. We do have a cancer patient navigator position within Stanton. That position is intended to help individuals through the system. But I hear the Member and I know that we need to do a little bit more work there. We do have the Aboriginal health and...