Norman Yakeleya

Would the Minister be committing to look at past files where people who have left their communities in the Sahtu who have to come to a long-term care facility because of their medical needs where these elders have paid for their own tickets from Colville Lake, Fort Good Hope, Deline or Tulita and that these files will be looked at and proper compensation will go back to these elders?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. I want to talk about the elders in our small communities who have to go through a long-term care facility either in Inuvik or Yellowknife. Once they get assessed in that community, they are better suited in the long-term care facility, providing they have beds. Is it the responsibility of the elders to find themselves in those facilities?

Thank you. I appreciate that from the Minister, to look into this specific case here, and again, looking forward to the type of new policies that are going to be put in place and have in our discussions. For example, patients come to the Wells to Yellowknife and then they find that there is a cheaper way to get back to their community. They make a suggestion and medical travel say no, you have to go back on this type of route there, so there is some uniqueness to our situations in our small communities.

I want to ask the Minister, does he foresee that this medical travel will be put in place...

As part of this Medical Travel Policy revision, I want to ask the Minister, would he commit to talking to this person or have the department talk to this person on her experience after surgery and what type of frustration she had to undergo and the agonizing speaking to medical travel to get her back? That’s not even getting her back to Tulita. She had to get her own way back from Norman Wells to Tulita, and this is only one of many incidents.

Is there a place where people that go through this type of experience can say this is what’s happening now with the Medical Travel Policy today? This is...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. The Northwest Territories Medical Travel Policy needs a major revamping and overhauling and hopefully it will be done within this Assembly.

There are many stories on medical travel from our small communities, on the medical escorts, to the medical travel, to appointments either here in Yellowknife or in Edmonton. For example, a medical travel appointment was scheduled in Edmonton; however, there was an unexpected illness with one of the relatives in Edmonton, so this medical travel client of Tulita flew down to Edmonton to be with her sister, who was on life support...

When patients are sent to Edmonton, and in regard to this patient from Tulita, are our patients given a phone number, a contact person in Edmonton where sometimes it might be out of the Medical Travel Policy but they’re down there for, like, this instance, which is unique? Are they given some type of support down there? Because this person went through her surgery, and after surgery there was no assistance and no support for her. She basically was on her own, and she had to fight medical travel to get her ticket paid back to Norman Wells. That’s not even getting her back to Tulita. Her husband...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services on medical travel. I spoke earlier about the incident with the person from Tulita on her experience with the Medical Travel Policy. This is only one incident of probably many across the Northwest Territories and from the smaller communities.

Can the Minister tell me how soon the Medical Travel Policy revision will be before the House so we can have some good discussion and have this type of incident be looked at with the revisions of the new Medical Travel Policy? Thank you.

Thank you. We have voted for these positions in past Legislative Assemblies, past sessions, and still we’re having a difficult time and I’m on board with Mrs. Groenewegen. How do we create some things to do something exciting, something that would fill these positions?

Mr. Blake talked about getting the young people back into our communities or somehow get the northern people back working again. So I want to ask the Minister, on these positions, what happens to the dollars when we vote on them and now we found out there are 800 vacant positions that are not yet filled? What happens to these...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Minister of Finance. On page 3 of the fiscal strategy of the budget address, the Minister says some of the areas of concern are hundreds of vacant jobs in the Northwest Territories. Then he goes on, and part of that paragraph that I want to focus on, but the Minister also stated that in there, is that they want to embark on an initiative to increase the population of the Northwest Territories in five years.

I want to ask the Minister, in the vacant jobs – there are hundreds of vacant jobs – how many vacant jobs are there in the Northwest Territories...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I heard on this side that we could be very creative on this initiative as to filling these 400 vacant positions, the active positions. I’m going to make the assumption that the 400 inactive, what does inactive, meaning these 400 positions to fill, and we can embark on that, and as I said, like some of our colleagues, but let’s start training up people in our own communities, start upgrading them. Maybe that’s the bigger picture.

I want to ask the Minister, when will the Cabinet come over to our side and say let’s sit down, let’s figure out how we can resolve this. Right...