Tom Beaulieu

Mr. Speaker, the Department of Health and Social Services works with the various health and social services authorities across the North. Specifically, right now we are in touch with the Sahtu, Beaufort-Delta and the Yellowknife Health and Social Services in delivering some programs. One is the applied suicide intervention skill training, which we are running in the various programs in the various communities within those regions. We deliver those and we have some funding targeted to that right now. We are spending about $260,000 in that specific program to deliver those programs to help...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The example the Member uses, the Joe Greenland facility, is an NWT Housing Corporation facility. The Member is correct that at one point Health and Social Services had more involvement in supporting the seniors and the facility such as this. We are currently working with the Housing Corporation on providing that level of service again to the individuals at both the Joe Greenland Centre, eight units that added on to the seniors citizens home in Aklavik, and a new facility that is planned for Fort McPherson of approximately eight or nine units that’s an assisted living...

Mr. Speaker, we are hoping to have one meeting soon. Aside from community meetings, we're hoping to get the MLA from Deh Cho and also the MLAs from Hay River as it could involve the new health centre in Hay River to provide services on the reserve, and also the two public administrators from Hay River and Deh Cho along with the chiefs from Deh Cho to sit down and make sure we are moving in the right direction and that people are happy with the direction that we are going in. Any medical services, as an example, the Member indicated that people in Fort Providence may find it easy to draw their...

Mr. Speaker, one of the reasons we appointed a public administrator is that there are certainly some significant concerns with health and social services in the Deh Cho. We are hoping that we are correcting some of those concerns in Health and Social Services and also that the public administrator, along with our senior management, recognizes the need to consult throughout the whole process. I have agreed to do a full consultation with not only Members of the Legislative Assembly but the leaders within the various communities in the Deh Cho along with the public administrator. Thank you.

Yes, I agree that some more visits by dental staff will be a good part of the oral health strategy. However, I think filling all of the dental therapist positions is also another strategy that we need to employ, and we’ll certainly look at the possibility of increasing visits as we did in other communities that requested that there be more visits. We will again talk to the dental people, within the bounds of our contract with them, to see what is possible.

I think that some of the acts of the dentist have to be revamped. Some of the acts are very old, so we are looking at revamping the Dental Profession Act at this time. Although the dental services remains a non-insured service, the department does get support from the federal government through the THSSI funding, or the Territorial Health System Sustainability Initiative. They provide us about a quarter of a million dollars in this area to pay for the dentists to go in there.

The specific details of why it was not included in a complete transfer in 1988, I don’t have that specific detail here...

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. Today I would like to do another tribute. I’d like to do a tribute to a Mr. Roy King Sr. from Fort Resolution. Mr. King was my uncle. He was born on May 6, 1949, and passed away October 3, 2013, at the age of 64. Roy Sr. was diagnosed with terminal cancer in the spring and passed away in the fall.

Roy King Sr. was born in Rocher River and was raised in Rocher River and Rat River. He was the youngest of Francois King and Judith Giroux’s children. Rocher River was a thriving community where people lived directly on the land. Roy attended school in Rocher River until the...

Certainly the mandate of the department is to do the best possible job it can in introducing infrastructure into the community. The new health centre in Fort Providence is on schedule. We’re proceeding with that piece of infrastructure. The timelines that we are looking at prior to moving to a public administrator is the same timeline that we are looking at now, so there will be no change in that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We certainly had some discussions on the timeline on when we will go back to having a board of management. We need to do some consultation. There is some feeling by some Members in the Legislative Assembly that perhaps we could have some form of advisory board, but the plan is to have a board back in place within two years.

I’ve had this discussion with the newly appointed public administrator and he recognizes that his role there is to assist us in eventually bringing a board back in place for the Deh Cho Health and Social Services. Thank you.

The Department of Health and Social Services is working with the Government of Nunavut and the Government of Yukon developing a pan-territorial oral health strategy. We are doing the oral health strategy because of obvious reasons of health and all kinds of positive impacts. Within that health strategy, we are going to do an oral health promotion and prevention. We have listed many programs that we are looking at and together we’re hoping that, as indicated in the report, the only jurisdiction that had worse results than the Northwest Territories dental-wise was Nunavut, and we are working...