Julie Green

Yes, thank you. This answer really turns on the personal resources of the person. In some cases people may be able to access health benefits through their work or through their parents work if they're dependent children. It may be possible if they're seniors. It is possible for them to access support from the GNWT. Likewise people who qualify for Metis health benefits can have their drugs covered and those with the specified conditions.

After that, it may be possible for a person to apply for private health insurance. It may also be possible for a person to apply for income assistance and for a...

Abstain.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for Hay River South for the question.

I want to start by saying this isn't the appropriate forum to discuss specific cases or conditions. It's important that we respect the right of patients to their health information.

That said, on the general topic of the specified conditions, the list, which has 58 conditions on it, was inherited from the federal government when we took responsibility in this area in 1988. Some conditions were added in 2011 through the medical director of the time.

The specified disease list is now the subject of a review...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document, Followup Letter for Oral Question 104119(2): Student Access to Support Services. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, thank you. I found in my notes here that the chief operating officer was there May 2nd to the 5th. She met with community members, the mayor, the staff at the health centre, to look at ways that communication could be improved within the community and between the community and the health and social services authority.

The service levels are a concern. I've mentioned this previously. We're very short of nurses, and that applies to Fort Resolution as it does to other places. Finding staff is done on a systemwide basis. So we don't have a plan that single out particular communities. We need...

Yes, thank you. I was honoured, Mr. Speaker, to tour your communities Fort McPherson, Tsiigehtchic, Aklavik.

I attended a constituency meeting with my colleague from Inuvik Boot Lake. I went to the Fort Smith Medical Centre and met with regional wellness council. I went to Norman Wells, and I met with the regional wellness council there and toured the longterm care. And I met with the Yellowknife regional wellness council which includes a representative from Fort Resolution.

The issues were what I would define as case management, which means that people had specific concerns about their own...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we've done quite a lot of work in my time expanding the number of communitybased treatment programs that are available to Indigenous governments primarily and also to community governments. It's really driven by those entities about what range of ages they take into their programs.

So, for example, we have the On the Land Healing Fund, Community Suicide Prevention Fund, Peer Support Fund, and Addictions Recovery and Aftercare Fund.

So these funds are set up with a focus but the implementation is really, as I said just now, up to the Indigenous...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, what we consider in providing addiction services for our youth and children is the vulnerability of the population and our ability to support them. So I feel very confident that having that response come through child and family services is very important.

One of the services they offer, for example, is when a child goes to treatment outside of the community, outside of the territory, they arrange for courtesy supervision, which means that there's a social worker where the child is who will check on them, connect them to any additional services and make sure...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to point out that the situation is very different in the Yukon. They have declared a public health emergency around overdose deaths following a series of deaths right after the New Year. We had three overdose deaths in the NWT in the first three quarters of last year. And three is too many. But compared to the toll that alcohol takes on people in the NWT, alcohol is a much more significant problem, and it's the one that we are addressing with the development of the territorial alcohol strategy. Thank you.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you for the question.

There's obviously an overlapping responsibility here where Justice is primarily responsible for what's criminal and how to enforce that, and Health and Social Services is responsible for what is a health issue and how to respond to that. So the change yesterday doesn't address the primary concern of health which safe supply of illicit drugs, the amount of drugs, and whether they qualify as possession or should be seized is really a Justice issue. Thank you.