Julie Green

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today to voice my commitment as Minister of Health and Social Services, as a Member of this Legislative Assembly, and as a resident of the Northwest Territories to address racism in all its forms in the NWT Health and Social Services system. Throughout the Northwest Territories, the Health and Social Services system works to provide quality services for all NWT residents: care that is respectful, responsive, and accessible. However, research shows that Indigenous peoples experience a disproportionate amount of negative health and social outcomes in comparison to...

The staff at Stanton would like to put this issue behind them, but unfortunately, this is historically a recurring problem that is most often occurring in April and May and aligns with the spring melt and the difference in the water chemistry. It has turned out to be a very unpredictable problem. It will appear and disappear, making it very difficult to investigate the root causes as much as we would also like to do that. What we have done, though, in preparation for this year's spring melt, is taken measures to mitigate potential future occurrences with the purchase of new equipment for the...

At the time the sterilizer had to be shut down, there were 124 pending surgeries. They have now all been completed except for those people who asked for later dates in the spring. One thing that Stanton has done to address elective surgeries on the wait list, okay. I have to just start the sentence again. There came a point where they were not taking any more people onto the wait list because they had no idea when they could get through it, so there are an unknown number, unknown to me at this point, people who would have liked to have had surgery but did not get onto the wait list. What is...

I do not have that information at hand, but I can find it.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Member mentioned, this is an NIHB service and the travel requirements are their travel requirements. I do not have an opportunity to address those requirements. Thank you.

Among my many, many, many accomplishments, engineering is not one and so I cannot actually make a commitment to providing a portable air handling unit for the Member's health centres so that dental services can be resumed. What I have told him, and he is not satisfied with, is that there is an assessment that will happen within the next four months and a plan will be developed because, obviously, it is very important to a person's overall health that they have good dental health. The department does not argue with that. I know the Member is really big on "right now," but unfortunately, this is...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just to begin, I would like to say that it's the Non-Insured Health Benefits program that offers dental services. The NIHB program uses facilities that belong to NTHSSA. Really, the responsibility here is with Indigenous Services Canada. They were the ones who suspended dental treatment service last March when the COVID pandemic lockdown began. What happened after that is that the Health and Social Services authorities, supported by the leadership council, requested that dental services not be resumed in health centres until a number of issues, including safety concerns...

The Department of Health and Social Services does not conduct research in this area. If somebody who is a researcher comes to us and asks to partner with us, then we certainly would look at that proposal. We would consider offering things like in-kind services, letters of support, contributions of data, staff time, and so on. We are not the initiator of the research, but we are willing participants where we can be.

I recognize this is a difficult time for the Member to have a death, not only in his community, but in his family. It is not my job to decide which hotel rooms are paid for and in what circumstances. That's the job of the Premier as the lead on the COVID Secretariat.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's my understanding that every community, even those without health centres, have rapid testing available to them. The important piece to know about rapid testing is that it is only used on people who have symptoms of COVID. They are not going to use it on me unless I am running a fever, I have aches and pains, flu-like symptoms, respiratory symptoms. Then they would give me a test, but they do not test healthy people unless they are essential workers in the healthcare system. The situation is that the tests are widespread, but they are only used for people who are...