Julie Green

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member is right. I certainly would like to help his communities to gain or regain their mental health. I said that I would inquire about sending a travelling team to Tuktoyaktuk. I'm not sure about the staffing levels off the top of my head in his other communities and whether they are as shortstaffed as they are in Tuk. But that's something that I will inquire about.

At the end of the day, we want people to be living their best lives, and we're prepared to support that in whatever way we can. And if that's a travelling team while there aren't...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, thank you to the Member for that question. There's no question that the pandemic has been very hard on the mental health of the whole population. People at different times have been stressed; they've been lonely; they've been anxious; they've been worried. And we have tried to respond by providing counselling in a virtual setting if COVID restrictions are in place, or facetoface if not. I realize that Tuktoyaktuk is short a couple of counsellors. And the primary reason for that is because there's no housing for them, and so people have been offered...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you to the Member for that question. This is a topic that is on the mind of many residents of the NWT.

We are aware that people haven't had the same access to services that they may have had in the past for a variety of reasons. We've had staff who have been sick or in isolation. We have staff who've been committed to the pandemic effort. And so the result is in some cases we have fallen behind. The NTHSSA is right now working to identify areas where we need to enhance our capacity or bring new resources to focus on developing a plan to catch up for things like...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the Member for that question. Just to reiterate, there is no mandatory vaccine policy.

We did see people who were vaccinated contract Omicron variant and, in some cases, those people have been hospitalized and in some cases they have been part of the unfortunate number of people who have died. But generally speaking, the vaccine presents greater protection for the severity of illness and outcomes to people who choose to take it, particularly if they take the booster shot as well. And vaccination is an important tool that we consider in making decisions...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you for the question. We are going to have health capacities set up knowing that this disease is not going to go away and that outbreaks are likely to continue. So the CPHO will be actively monitoring COVID as she has throughout the last two years. She will continue to do that and give us advice on how to deal with the variants as they come along.

As things stand now, what we're looking at is making sure that we have a robust public health response to the endemic portion of the disease, meaning that we have capacity to test, trace, vaccinate, isolate, and...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you for the question. I advise the Member to tell his constituents we're working on it. We know the measures that are in place now have resulted in significant disruptions to people's lives, and we want to bring that disruption to an end. As I previously said, we'd be following an evidencedbased decisionmaking process in order to decide when and how to lift restrictions.

The CPHO has already agreed to lift leisure travel restrictions by March 1st, which is a week from tomorrow. She has said she is reviewing further orders and is prepared to make additional...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have a Return to Oral Question asked by the Member for Great Slave on December 1st, 2021, regarding addictions aftercare and mental health.

Mr. Speaker, there's no single approach that I or the Department of Health and Social Services take to engage with the federal government to advocate for the needs of residents of the Northwest Territories. While it would not be appropriate for me or the department to direct the federal government regarding the operation and administration of its programs and services, I take every opportunity to provide advice or...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you for the question. At this point, there is a dedicated health human resources unit in the Department of Finance so we, in fact, already work closely with them to recruit people and to provide for training and other opportunities for staff. So that would be decided on a casebycase basis, what kind of support is available and to whom and when and how that relates to the department that the person is coming from. So this fund for skill enhancement is in place, and we want it totally spent. If people are interested in expanding their skills and taking up different...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the question. The fact is that we need to continue to provide health resources in whatever way we can, whether that's hiring locums or agency nurses or, best of all, having people become our resident indeterminate staff.

So, we've worked particularly on hiring local indeterminate staff. I'm pleased to tell the Member that all 11 nursing graduates from Aurora College in 2021 were hired into indeterminate positions. The Indigenous Gateway Program has provided us with ten new hires. The Health and Social Services summer student program has provided us with...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question, but at this time, I don't have a specific dollar figure. What we're trying to work out is what kind of increase in our public health capacity we need to continue doing testing, contact tracing, vaccinations, and managing outbreaks. And so it's so difficult to tell exactly what kind of resources we're going to need for that. And here's why:

Since the Omicron variant, we've had 6,000 cases in the NWT, three times as many as we had prior to the beginning of Omicron. So the amount of staff that has been involved in responding to...