Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To give two quick examples, the Department of Health and Social Services is working with Education, Culture and Employment to look at revising the current curriculum to make it more effective and have more of an impact on this area. As well, Mr. Speaker, we have a significant network of resources in all the communities with, on the clinical side, nurses, community health reps, social workers, and this document. On the practical side, trying to make sure we review the standards we have, the ability to track contacts and working with the people who come through the...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is one of the infections, maybe it’s a disease. It’s one of the infections that we deal with when we look at sexually-transmitted infections. When individuals are identified, then we try to stay aware of where they are, we try to monitor where they are moving to and we, of course, work with them about the critical need of not spreading the disease or the infection. Basically that would be the approach we take. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, this is indeed a very sensitive, crucial area. There is capacity in Stanton on the long-term care side, as well as other facilities I have been in that have capacity with families who may have an individual, as the Member indicated, who is dying and where there is capacity for the family to be together where it is set up to be as comfortable and as soothing as possible so that the family can be supported along with the individual. In Stanton, as I indicated, the capacity is there and since we have the public administrator here, I’ll ask if he would...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the process has been for the CEO in the Sahtu to work with the CEO in Inuvik. They have been working not only on the delivery of services, but on being able to finalize the transfer of administration of services so that the Sahtu is basically self-contained. I understand that very recently, they believe they have reached the point where they should be able to do most of that transfer by April 1st. As the Member knows, we are going to be staffing the CEO position in the Sahtu. If we can fill the remaining few positions that have been left to run the...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, when dealing with individuals, often assumptions are made based on behaviours. There are times, depending on when alcohol was ingested by the mother, when there may be some clearly visible features that are indicative of an individual with FASD which would be a clear indication of what may be at issue with this individual. But the Member is correct that there are assumptions made that the high number of FASD people are individuals that there may be in the Northwest Territories, but there isn’t a lot of testing done.

On the time frame for the partnership to...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I can commit to provide to the Member, through the Social Programs committee, the usage numbers for the Telehealth sites we do have, as well as the existing communities, those who are on the books for this year and coming years. I can show them what we are projecting with the funds we have available. I will commit to share that with committee. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, once again, we’re aware of the committee’s recommendation and we’re going to be looking at responding to that. I would also, as I did in committee, point out that we have been dealing, even though it may not have had the label FASD, I would suggest for generations now that we are in the midst of it. We are becoming more aware of it. There’s more and more effort being put into the research side. We’re just heading down next Friday to meet with the Pacific Northwest FASD Partnership which is comprised of the three territories, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I agree with the Member and we are trying to expand Telehealth services. One of the issues that became clear to us is we had spent a lot of time on the technical system side and not enough time on the actual program development dealing with the services and systems used by health practitioners. We now have brought on board into the department a champion on the use of Telehealth. It’s not so much a focus on the system side, but making sure it’s used to its full capacity. We have done that, as well. There is money in the budget to continue the expansions...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, a statistic of interest is the fact that there are 124 nursing positions at Stanton and we now only have five vacancies, which I believe is a good indicator that the things we’ve done to deal with recruitment and retention with the nursing profession have borne fruit. I also recognize that when there’s change, there are always some people who support it and invariably whatever decision is made some people don’t support it. As Minister, I have to make choices and decisions in the broadest, most careful, measured way I can, recognizing that not everybody will...

Thank you, Madam Chair. There is a different definition between disease and infection. Dr. Corriveau indicated to me this is not an arbitrary, unilateral decision that we thought it would be more effective. My understanding is the current thinking in the field is a more accurate depiction of what we are dealing with is an infection as opposed to a disease, so that they are now referred to as infections as opposed to diseases. They indicate that that is the new terminology and that’s what we go with.