Tom Beaulieu

Thank you. In all honesty, there was an idea at some point to increase the role in Hay River in the management of some of the Deh Cho communities. However, that was not accepted. It was something that we discussed for a very short time period and that was something that the communities in the Deh Cho did not accept. The new public administrator that was appointed to replace the board did not accept that, based on his discussions with the leadership in the Deh Cho. So we are not planning on rolling Deh Cho Health and Social Services under the Hay River authority.

In Hay River we will provide...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At this point the plan for the Deh Cho Health and Social Services Authority is to remain with the public administrator – myself and the public administrator spoke – for at least two years in order to do some of the work that we think is necessary, some of the issues that we’re dealing with in the Deh Cho Health and Social Services. Thank you.

I’ll talk a little bit about the original process. The original process was quite a long delay, where an individual had to be clean and sober and follow up with some community counselling, and then wait for the next intake into a treatment centre to go. Now, with the contracts that we have in the South that have continuous intake, I don’t think it’s every day but I think the intake is on a weekly basis, so every week new people wanting treatment come into the facility.

Our idea is once an individual comes into the system and requests treatment, that we try to bring them into the next intake at...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was referring to medical detox possibility at the hospitals. My understanding is that earlier on, during questioning on medical detoxification at the hospital, we agreed we could provide beds in the hospital; but to keep a bed vacant in hospitals all year long on standby for that would not be appropriate. So any bed in acute care can be used for an individual to detoxify.

I don’t think the health centres in the small communities would be set up for that, but they could possibly do it. With the right nursing staff in place, they could possibly do something like that if...

Yes, I do think it’s the responsibility of the board or the public administrator of the health authority to do a press release. The timing I guess is something that has to be sorted out. Obviously, it has caused some issue with the timing of the release. In the future when there are other CEOs that are being contemplated or hired in the various authorities, we can find a way added into the process to advise the MLAs, all MLAs or the Assembly. Usually that’s what we try to do. As I said, it’s just an unfortunate thing that had occurred. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, earlier on I indicated that perhaps we had a manpower issue in Inuvik because we were hearing some complaints about people not receiving their health care cards on time. However, that doesn’t seem to be the case. The time frame is what the time frame is. The idea is to try to make sure that individuals are getting coverage. That is the objective. Therefore, when we have the window of four months before your birthdate, that is so that individuals are resident of the territory for sure. We figured that four months was a reasonable time that an individual that is living in the...

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to congratulate Adrian Lizotte, originally from Tu Nedhe, for receiving the Premier’s Award yesterday for his work on anthrax.

It is with great sadness that I send my condolences to the family of the late Grant Giroux. He passed away on March 24, 2013, at age 58. He was born in Rocher River on February 18, 1955.

Grant was a hardworking, dedicated man and was dedicated to his seven children and 10 grandchildren. His work was always focused on the benefits for the people that he loved. He was a great father and grandfather and loved to show his love, and this will...

Mr. Speaker, I don’t have that information with me, but I do know that we have looked at other jurisdictions. We recognize that there are various ways that other jurisdictions have gone about renewing their health care or providing health care cards such as decision to go with a picture on the health care card and so on. We have looked at other jurisdictions. Specifically which jurisdictions we looked at and tried to follow, I don’t know which it was. I think we are continuing on with a system that we have developed ourselves. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, it is a standard process. It is a manual process. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, the Member is correct; the action plan is put together by government, but a lot of the actions are carried out by NGOs that we fund. I have a document here. Yesterday I spoke about the 50 or so NGOs that the Department of Health and Social Services support directly under the disabilities that I think may have perhaps six different organizations that we support within the funding of those NGOs. Our funding some of the action plans were put out. I think there are only a couple of them that are considered to be something that they were not going to carry out. I can go back to the...