Tom Beaulieu

Yes, we would commit to supporting and creating awareness with the organizations across the Territories working on trying to get the message out to people on stem cell research.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is not an increase in costs as a result of switching the contractors. The breakdown is that the Charlotte Vehus shortfall is $547,000, Billy Moore is $303,000, for a total of $850,000 for both homes. It’s a 2012-13 this year. It’s not substantially higher than any other year preceding up until 2012-13.

I’ll just run through some numbers. There was $1.422 million in 2009-10 and then $1.38 million, $1.45 million in 2012-13 and those were the other. So it’s not all of a sudden jumped up by that amount.

What’s been happening is that the authority has funded this and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In March 2011, at the provincial/territorial/federal Ministers’ meetings, the Ministers announced that they would jointly put $48 million into stem cell research. The NWT is included in that research and will benefit from it as well.

Specific to the Stanton Territorial Hospital, we can touch base with the CEO and advise the CEO of the issue and the CEO will have that discussion with the doctor that, at any point, if the individual is indicating that they themselves don’t feel well enough to be released from the hospital, that we then have some system where the CEO and the physician would have that discussion at that one time when this occurs. I can ensure that that happens.

In our system we have quality assurances. If that is happening in the Sahtu or something that is happening outside of our clinical practice guidelines, then we will assure that individuals can go to quality assurance. We have people in each of the authorities and at the department that can be contacted. I can provide that information to the Members, or the Member specific to this question also.

The Midwifery Program is not going to be contingent on THSSI funding. THSSI funding will just be put in, the $75,000 for 2013-2014. However, the rest of the funding, which is planned for Hay River for $472,000 and Beaufort-Delta for $952,000 and expansion of the territorial Midwifery Program of $1.8 million, will be going through the House.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The department recognizes the value of the Midwifery Program. We’re interested in bringing the Midwifery Program back to more than just Fort Smith; across the Territories, actually. With that, we have allocated $75,000 of the Territorial Health System Sustainability Fund from the federal government in 2013-2014 to start the process.

Again, we recognize the importance of the Midwifery Program, however, there are a lot of competing priorities in the Department of Health and Social Services. This is how we’re planning on rolling it out. We have paid for a consultant to do a review of the Midwifery Program for the Northwest Territories and these numbers are what we’re looking at out of that plan. We’re going to be reviewing that, of course, but for now we have paid for the consultant. This is how the report indicates we should roll out the Midwifery Program. The expansion in Hay River will be contingent upon the completion of...

I was referring to the money that we’re putting in for it. In 2012-2013 we’re doing community consultations. We’re going to review and update the NWT Midwifery Practice Framework and Midwife Regulations. In 2012-2013 we’re also going to do the preliminary health human resources planning for midwife recruitment and training options.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We don’t have long-term care patients in the hospital, but my understanding is that we might be talking about patients in extended care.

Right now I understand that basically what happens is that it’s based on clinical need. So the clinical need for an individual in long-term care is they get two hours’ worth of physio per week, and then they’ll get two hours’ worth of physio per week. If there’s a requirement, only two hours per month, then that’s what they get. It’s based on a clinical need of the patient. Thank you.