Julie Green

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the repositioning on the site doesn't deal with the problems I mentioned around maintaining essential services to the building. Certainly repositioning could happen, but the maintenance of service is the first thing that needs to happen. What we're waiting for, and I know other departments are waiting for as well, is the new flood maps that will be created as a result of this flood. And the bottom line here is that if the building is not insurable, it can't be built in that location. Thank you.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm not able to speak in a very informed way about the content of treatment programs. I am not in a position to deliver them, I'm not in a position to need them fortunately, so I can't give any detail to that question. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you to the Member for that question. The demolition of HH Williams Memorial Hospital is well underway and will be completed in this calendar year. Thank you

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the reason that the bed evaluation was redone is because we had better information from ten years of data as well as better population projections. Following the reevaluation, we committed to further reevaluations every four years. So there is every possibility that the number will change. And we will build the facility to meet the need that we know of, the most recent need that we know of.

One of the reasons that Hay River bed size went down is because it turned out there was a greater need in Fort Smith so it made sense to build two longterm care...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you for the question. My understanding is that there was an addition built on Woodland Manor and opened in 2018 to provide nine new rooms that were previously part of HH Williams Hospital, which was at that point being phased out. So there's the newer part and the older part. The older part has a life of approximately ten years remaining. And to verify that, we have asked the Department of Infrastructure to do a technical evaluation next spring on the existing Woodland Manor to confirm the useful life it has left.

Now, if the new longterm care is not attached...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the one facility that I am more familiar with is Nats'ejee K'eh.

Nats'ejee K'eh was never more than onethird full during the time that it was open, and the program cycled through 30 days for men and 30 for women. And so if you wanted to seek treatment and they were early into the opposite cycle, then you would have to wait potentially seven to eight weeks for intake. There was a problem attracting and keeping qualified staff. So what we found is that since we started contracting the southern facilitybased treatment, the number of people who are accepted...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in response to the Office of the Auditor General's report, we created a work plan which details our response to each of the recommendations, and we accepted all the recommendations.

We have, as the Member may know, a whole division within the department called community culture and innovation that looks at culturally appropriate services. And to that end, they've done extensive training with staff. They ensure that there is when people do go south for facilitybased treatment that there is appropriate cultural safety provisions in place. So that's just...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you for that question. The way that the referrals work now is that we have an agreement with Alberta Health Services to provide, as a first response, care and services in Edmonton and the associated support services, such as the Larga Boarding Home and medical travel contracts and so on, all support that Edmonton location. I don't have any information about the relative waiting lists of Edmonton versus Calgary, which would be an important dimension to consider here. And also another thing to consider would be whether Alberta Health Services would provide the...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have enough money to continue running the program at the scale it's at now. In order to have a larger program, we would need a greater investment from the federal government who pays for a portion of home and community care and has been paying for this program. Thank you

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you to the Member for the question.

Mr. Speaker, in 2015, we created bed projections based on historic occupancy of the longterm care and projections of the population going forward. We had reason to revisit that in 2020, and we learned that in fact there weren't as many beds required all across the NWT as we previously thought. And so at that time the bed projections were revised, and 20 is the number, as my colleague said, for Inuvik. Thank you