Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I’d like to point out that the government has been very committed to working with YACCS. The Department of Health and Social Services has given them money to do their studies. As a government we’ve turned over land worth $1.6 million to them to assist in their planning, and at this point it’s part of the mix when it comes to the final report that’s going to be coming out in November. There is a lot of money at stake that’s being requested. The YACCS facility is a multi-million dollar proposal with the territorial government being the sole funding...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, that applies to both general practitioners and specialists. It’s a four-year agreement that will expire, I believe, in 2007 or 2008. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have just in the last number of months, in our first year, signed a four-year agreement with the Medical Association of the Northwest Territories, that gives the doctors a very competitive pay and benefits package. We have many perks in there that make it very competitive. The pay is good. There are lots of good benefits. As well, we are also funding and helping to assist some northern students who are currently in medical school, who will hopefully be graduating in a number of years. I think there are four currently in school that are going to be...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the reality is at the end of the day that the territorial government will be the sole funding agent for any development that goes on with dementia units, including the Yellowknife one. The reality is what they are looking at is a different variation, but the fundamental dollar requests come to the department, come to the government, and we are going to guarantee and through the O and M costs pay the mortgage costs for whatever construction takes place. So the reality is we’re going to work with YACCS. It’s going to be in the plan, but when the YACCS...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I met a number of months ago now with YACCS and I met with the Social Programs committee on this issue. I believe that I have also written to the Yellowknife MLAs who are supporting this project. Basically what is currently happening is we are in the process of completing a report that’s due in November. It’s going to look at facility usage across the Northwest Territories in terms of acute care beds and long-term care beds and the issue of dementia and how it impacts not only Yellowknife, but Hay River, Inuvik, Fort Smith and Simpson, all the places...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, out of the $8.4 million, we put in funding for additional doctors in the Deh Cho, into the Sahtu and for the Inuvik region, as well. So we’ve added doctors, we are looking at adding nurse practitioners, we are trying to come up with a special program to better mentor community health nurses so that we can get many of the recent graduates qualified as soon as possible and agree to work in the communities. So we are very aware and very concerned about the service in the regions and in the communities, and these are some of the things we are doing. Thank...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member has raised an interesting question; one, obviously, that I must become more conversant on. So, yes, I will review the issue.

But…Hearing silence from the Speaker I will carry on.

---Laughter

Mr. Speaker, if a student is at home and they are sick and they have to be referred south, if I understood the question, that would be medical travel as far as I am aware. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are doing a review of the clients. We have done a review. We have made the steps in some cases to repatriate some of the clients. One size does not fit all. These are clients with individual and, in some cases, very specific and specialized needs. It’s not accurate or appropriate to assume that you can just create a facility that would be able to deal with all the issues of all these high-needs individuals. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the money is not spent to no end. These are individuals that have significant needs. In some cases we’ve done a review on all the clients. In some cases they’ve been returned to the North. In other cases alternate placements have been found. Some are very high need and will never be able to, in our opinion, come North, at least not in the foreseeable future. So we’ve made the appropriate arrangements in all cases for the individuals involved. Thank you.