Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, just for current day-to-day practice, there is a significant amount of care taken with access to the actual drugs themselves and the forms used to do prescriptions, but it would not, in my opinion from what I’ve seen in doctors' offices, take much to come up with a pad, to manufacture a pad and find the doctor’s name and basically forge his signature. So for those who are intent, there are always ways to try and do that. The normal course of events and practices are fairly stringent in terms of trying to prevent against the abuse, not so much on the...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to assure the Member that I just don’t sit in my office gazing out at the lake thinking what we should do today to the health care system. We work very closely with all the boards, all the CEOs, and the senior staff across the Northwest Territories. In fact, this issue of consolidation of clinics has been on the table now for a number of years, put forward by Yellowknife Health and Social Services. There have been the senior managers and other professionals brought to the table to deal with health issues who have discussed this issue already. What we are...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have with me Mr. Dave Murray, the deputy minister of Health and Social Services; and Warren St. Germaine, director of Financial Services. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the Member’s comments and suggestions and we’ll definitely consider them as we move forward in this area. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I believe the saying is, our reach has to exceed our grasp, for what is heaven for. We are faced with very many daunting challenges that seem irresolvable. We have set some very tough goals for ourselves as a territory, keeping in mind that this is 100 percent preventable. It is a personal choice issue. It is an education issue. It is a very simple one of not having unprotected sex and how do we deal with the individuals and the families in the communities to make the point that, like many of the other issues we talked about in this House, it is...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In fact, it’s been done on an international basis. I just have some information here from the States, as well as the Public Health Agency of Canada, that speaks to the change of the name and I would be happy to share this information on what the thinking was and why the decision was made to do that.

Yes, Madam Chair, not wanting to be flippant, but clearly what’s happening out there that results in this of course is the fact that there is a lot of unprotected sex and individuals not practicing using birth control or appropriate methods to prevent pregnancy or disease and there is a distinct correlation to that activity in STIs and pregnancies. So you have to look on the individual basis. If a lady gets pregnant or a female gets pregnant, there’s no standard response. If there’s a situation that requires support and it’s a single mother or a very young lady then, yes, there are services...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, Dr. Corriveau has indicated that they will be reflecting this increase and renewed emphasis through the business planning process that we do at the departmental level. Plus, there will be ongoing work with the authorities and the other partners in the coalition on this issue. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There may be; the Member is correct. There may be cases out there that we aren’t aware of that haven’t reported in, who haven’t been sick enough or come forward as being part of any other kind of blood test or blood work that’s being done for other reasons. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the Member’s comments. As indicated yesterday that as we move ahead with the document that’s going to deal with the facilities, flowing out of that will be the conclusion of the master planning for Stanton, as well as Hay River and Fort Smith. So there will be an opportunity to look at that and to have that input. As well, just to state the obvious to the Member, very clearly, as a department, officials in Yellowknife are tracking the discussion in this House and issues that are raised and commitments that we made for follow up and to identify as well...