Julie Green

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a return to oral question asked by the Member for Nunakput on March 4, 2021, regarding medevac services. In the 2020 calendar year, there were approximately 180 air ambulance transports for the communities of Paulatuk, Sachs Harbour, Tuktoyaktuk, and Ulukhaktok.

Mr. Speaker, the med-response program has bases in Yellowknife and Inuvik. There are three crews and planes in Yellowknife and one crew and plane in Inuvik. When med-response receives a request, it is triaged to determine need and severity. The team looks at available resources and dispatches planes and...

It's my hope that we are delivering culturally appropriate services in all of our different offerings, but some of the ones that I haven't yet mentioned are the suicide prevention fund, which my colleague from Frame Lake mentioned. It's an application-based community development program; the peer support program, which assists people who require after-care supports from facility-based treatment; another is on-the-land programming, which would be applied for by the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation and distributed to the communities. That's a good pot of money that can be spent in a very flexible...

The community suicide prevention fund was announced earlier this month, and that's a very short window for spending the money in this fiscal year. There was a commitment to work with communities to fund their projects early in the next fiscal year so that they would get a jump on this. What I do know from the department is: there's been a lot of interest in this fund. I know that there are groups who have been able to finalize proposals and offer their own suicide prevention and intervention programming.

The Member mentioned that $45,000 is the cap. That doesn't mean that every group will...

The stepped care approach is not specifically focused on suicide. It's about providing a seamless pathway of care to individuals who are looking for it. There is focus, of course, within this particularly on mental health and addictions. What this approach has enabled us to do is to eliminate waiting lists for care. The care is provided as needed, so it's possible to get a same-day appointment. If you need another appointment tomorrow, you can come back tomorrow. There isn't this old-fashioned way of making a block of appointments once a week for several weeks. The other thing that the stepped...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As we approach the end of this sitting, I know that Members of this House and residents of the Northwest Territories are looking forward to spring and summer in the North and all that it offers. This is a good time for us to reflect on the past year to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. It has been a long haul for all of us.

The first case of COVID-19 in the Northwest Territories was confirmed on March 21, 2020. That was just shortly after the first Public Health Order restricted travel within the NWT and required all travellers coming in to isolate for 14 days in one of...

Thank you, I appreciate the committee taking up this recommendation. It was a piece of unfinished business from the Special Committee to Increase Representation of Women in the Legislative Assembly, which was in the 18th Assembly. The idea is that this rebate would apply equally to men and women. It would lower the barrier of financial cost, the cost of being in an election, as a reason not to run and widen the pool of candidates who would be able to run. The total cost is very affordable, it's just over $55,000 based on the 2019 election, and yet, it would open the doors to additional people...

There is virtual care available to some extent in all communities. We have recently signed an agreement with the federal government that will enable us to enhance our virtual care offerings all across the NWT. We recognize that this is a way to put people in touch with specialized services, or services in their community while they have vacancies in critical positions. I do believe that virtual care is the way of the future, and we see that. We are enhancing that as money becomes available.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Particularly in Nunakput, it's my understanding that there are child and youth care counsellors in place in the schools to assist children and youth. There are wellness workers and there are child and youth family counsellors; I understand that that particular position in Tuktoyaktuk is now vacant. These people would be delivering the Community Counselling Program, as well as the child and youth care counsellor program. In addition to that, there would be various virtual supports such as the Help Line, the apps, and then, in the event of a critical incident, which I...

It all starts with a critical incident, and the community reaching out to the health authority to ask for help. Once that step has been accomplished, then there's a conversation about what kind of help is required. Then the authority engages with finding those additional supports, whether they come from inside the community, inside the region, from Yellowknife, or from outside of the territory. They try to meet the goals that the community has. Maybe those are one-on-one counselling. Maybe they feel like they need critical incident debriefs or other outreach supports or outreach supports to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you to the Member for Frame Lake for the question. Once a suicide attempt has taken place, the first step is to assess whether the person requires medical treatment and, as part of the medical treatment, whether the person would benefit from being certified under the Mental Health Act. That would be hospital route. The non-hospital route is to speak with the individual, determine that admission to the hospital is not necessary, and then do a risk assessment with them.

When it is deemed safe for the person to leave the hospital, they take with them a safety plan...