Tom Beaulieu

Again, depending on what type of craft is needed, what type of vehicle would be needed for the medevac would depend upon the response time. What I can advise the Member is we can ensure that when the call is received, that the medevac people are out as quickly as possible, as soon as they can get into the air. That is supposed to be the standard. As soon as the people are mobilized and the plane can be in the air is the time we’re trying to achieve. Thank you.

I will assume that the Territorial Electronic Medical Record Project Team will be looking at best practices across the Territories and then put the information together for the act, and also that they had also reviewed all of the Privacy Commissioner’s recommendations, and through the review they have addressed the concerns of the Privacy Commissioner pertaining to this area.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Health Information Act is top priority for the Department of Health and Social Services, and we would be hoping that the bill will be ready for introduction in the 2013 fall session.

If we thought there were shortfalls, we wouldn’t be putting in such a system. We feel that this is an improvement. We’re handing a patient over the same way that all of Alberta that medevac people into Edmonton hand their patients over. We think we’re handing them over to the Alberta Health Services at that point and we think that the patient is getting good care, excellent care from the time that they arrive. They’re able to go into the terminal, they’re able to turn the plane around quicker, the medevac plane can have a patient waiting there, delivered there by Alberta Health Services and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The fact that the Edmonton Centre Airport closed down was not a decision that laid with this government. The fact that there is more time to fly to the International Airport is because it happens to be further away than the Municipal Airport. However, what I was referring to was the care once the person arrived. We are able to move the person that is being medevaced to Edmonton into an ambulance service that would take them through the city and we are able to hand them over at the airport instead of outside, or having a contractor that we were contracting from here pick...

All of the standards for the medevacs are laid out in the contracts between Stanton and the people that provide medevac services. Again, it would be difficult to put an actual time period in any specific community because it would depend largely on what type of craft would be needed.

In this specific case, the plane that would be ready under normal circumstances to pick up a medevac was not suitable to go into Trout Lake. They had to reconfigure a different plane. That took some time.

I agree with the Member that there was too much time at the outset contacting the medical people, and we are...

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. The response time would depend upon what type of craft would be needed. In this case, they determined, after contacting the medical people in the Deh Cho, that a Twin Otter was needed. So a Twin Otter was configured as quickly as that can happen to get to the site would be the response time.

I had not had previous discussions with the Minister of Health from Saskatchewan on the press release. However, when there is anything that’s pertaining to health right across the country, we have individuals in our communications that would track it, pull out some information and eventually, as we sit down and go through various agenda items with the deputy minister as part of regular routine, we discuss what’s happening in other parts of the country in as far as health goes. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I haven’t specifically talked to other Ministers. We all have the different types of issues in recruiting doctors. There are doctor shortages everywhere. It’s just that our percentage of our population that don’t have immediate access to doctors is probably higher than most, maybe not as high as Nunavut but higher than most places. We develop various strategies. We have a website. We have bursaries. We have 22 medical students from NWT now out in school that we are tracking. Like I indicated, we offer a good compensation package. We also offer residency to any doctors that wish to...

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. Today I want to recognize some people from the health authorities and Health and Social Services. These individuals are taking advanced investigations training. We have Cheryl Abraham, Fort Providence, Deh Cho Health and Social Services; Jocelyn MacLean, Fort Simpson, Deh Cho Health and Social Services; Debbie Greenland, Inuvik, Beaufort-Delta Health and Social Services; Lisa Norris, Aklavik, Beaufort-Delta Health and Social Services; Ellen McDonald, Inuvik; Melissa McDonald, Inuvik; Tasha Lake, Yellowknife; Amanda Neville, Yellowknife; Vanessa Rankin, Yellowknife...