Julie Green

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following two documents: "Projected Demand for Long-Term Care Beds in the NWT, NWT Bureau of Statistics, August 2020;" and "Department of Health and Social Services Response to Long-Term Care Bed Projections." Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Government of the Northwest Territories knows how important it is to enable seniors to age in place with dignity as loved and valued members of our communities. That is why the 19th Legislative Assembly has identified this as one of the 22 priorities in the Mandate of the Government of the Northwest Territories. We are taking a whole-of-government approach to create the conditions in which seniors will be able to stay at home as they age.

Mr. Speaker, one way that the Department of Health and Social Services is working to achieve this mandate priority is by...

Midwives, in particular, have always engaged their clients using a variety of methods, and in the current communications environment, that includes phone, text, FaceTime, and video conferencing. This particular engagement is being considered in the expansion of midwifery services in the Yellowknife area, which I referenced earlier, and so how to meet current needs is certainly on our radar. We do not expect everybody to pack up the baby and come into the office.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to thank the Member for introducing a new term for me, the fourth trimester. For a moment there I thought that pregnancy might have been extended for an entire year, but I understand now that this is the first three months of baby's life. Of course, as the Member said in her statement, it's common for new parents, especially first-time parents, to be anxious about how to care for their baby, their family, and themselves, and certainly, it is not a time where we want people to feel alone and unsupported. We realize that COVID-19 has, in fact, had that kind...

Hay River and Fort Smith have midwifery services at this point, and the idea of hiring one additional midwife for each of these locations is to stabilize the program. The next community on the list for midwives is Yellowknife, and as I already said, that would require the hiring of four midwives. There are some conversations going on about how the program could be expanded beyond that. Today, this very day, there is consultation going on with Fort Resolution community members and healthcare workers to find out whether they are interested in having midwives, whether they would prefer to have a...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you for the question. As I said in February, we, the Department of Health and Social Services, have been successful in completing five out of 10 recommendations. The department continues towards moving to the completion of the remaining five recommendations, and we previously committed and continue to commit to coming up with a preliminary plan on how to implement these recommendations in June of 2021. The next phase of this plan is phase 2. If it has funding, it would provide four midwives in Yellowknife, one in Hay River, and one in Fort Smith. It would not...

I appreciate the Member's passion on this topic and the desire to keep people at home. It is our mandate to help seniors age in place with dignity, and of course, that's every senior in the NWT. The way that long-term care works is that people don't go in to long-term care unless they have 24/7 nursing needs or chronic conditions, complex conditions, that need full-time nursing care. Unfortunately, the reason that people don't last a long time after they go into long-term care is because they are already pretty ill. The average stay in long-term care is around two-and-a-half years. I...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If the Member is talking about long-term care facilities, there are none in his riding. If he is talking about homecare support so that people receive services while in their own homes, every community in the Beaufort-Delta and in his riding has homecare services available. They are usually provided by the healthcare centre, and they work with elders and their families to deliver the services that are identified as required under a nursing assessment. That could be a full range of things from help with bathing and mobility, light housekeeping, meal preparation, and so...

I appreciate the opportunity to clarify here, as well. In fact, what took place in Tsiigehtchic was a pilot program to train local community members as first responders beginning in 2019. The good news about this pilot program is that 16 community members did receive emergency response training. That work, however, has not progressed from that stage. It is in the health Department's work plan to engage with MACA to discuss next steps on how we can build on this pilot, and the next steps are due by September of this year.

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I am sure the Member can appreciate, with 33 different communities, there are a number of different ways of getting there. One possibility is local emergency service providers, such as the fire department or the RCMP. In some places, there are ground transportation contracts that are available through a competitive bid. In some cases, community governments provide that service, and in some cases, in fact, people do it themselves with whatever equipment they have available. Thank you.