Lesa Semmler

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, at this point, there is no capacity to remove the responsibility from the CHN; however, you know, the CHN is still the most responsible and only provider able to handle this service within the current model of our -- the community model of care. But there are many different things that are going on right now, including primary care reform, Deh Cho's journey mapping, the work on small community model of care, which I spoke about in my statement today. We are improving continuity of core services delivering by both how other professions, like we just said...

Mr. Speaker, ensuring residents across the Northwest Territories continue to have access to health care that is safe, reliable and equitable is a top priority for me, and for this government, and for the Northwest Territories health and social services system. Today, I am pleased to share an update about the work we are doing within that system to improve care in small community health centres and health cabins.

Just like every jurisdiction in Canada, our healthcare system is strained by staffing shortages. As a country, we simply are not graduating enough doctors, nurses, and allied...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, and I think this is a -- this is why we're looking at how can we implement paramedics into the small communities because currently right now, you know, they work in larger regional centres and not necessarily -- what has happened is over the summer months, we do contract paramedics that are on standby to be deployed to the health centres if needed, an evacuation in a community. And so since we have them -- and usually summertime is when we have our reduced services -- they've been in the clinics doing triaging and helping the CHN, working alongside the CHN...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have a lot of health professionals that have worked in our healthcare system, and we are slowly regulating those health professionals. We are looking, as for instance, LPNs most currently were regulated under the nursing -- I think it's the CANN legislation that we passed last year. There is the Health Professions Act that we are, you know, working on to bring to the floor, and there are a number of different aspects under that that we are going to be bringing forward regulations under. We are currently trying to bring forward all of the staff that are...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate the Member, you know, and I will take him up on if he has any other recommendations, feel free to stop at my office and give me that list of recommendations. I'll bring them over to NTHSSA and see what they can do about that.

As for the lab recs that are -- any lab tests that cannot be done within the house, like there is a multiple types of tests that we do in-house at Stanton, and there are some that we -- they just don't have the capacity to continue to do all of those samples. They send them to Alberta through the contract that we have through the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this is a report from their internal division to their executive as they are through the authority. So this report is actually going to -- once they get it to the executive, the NTHSSA, then that's where they will define on where and what their implementation plan is. I haven't seen the implementation. I haven't seen what they're accepting and not accepting or what they're going to continue to work on or where they may need more information. That's usually how those types of plans come. I haven't seen it yet, so I can't speak to any of that yet. However...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yes, I have read the report, and I have -- I actually met with Indigenous patient advocates before the report came out and which was -- we had a -- we spent almost half a day together, and we talked about their -- what they have in their job as tools and what they're hearing from and how can they move these things forward, and this was part of their way of moving forward some of the words of the residents in the Northwest Territories that are going through their system. And so I think it's a good report that it highlights everything that anybody in this...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there is waitlists, and within the callback or the online, it is active right now. And from my understanding, any time that there is a gap or an opening or a physician or any of the health providers, it is filled with those lists that they have currently. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as the Member has said, that the health authority has a history of doing that process but not being able to do it in a way where we need to ensure that it's done in the proper process, and that is what we are doing right now. We are ensuring that the proper process is being followed and that we are going to look at the correct amount of staff to staff -- to look at what the staffing needs is for the Stanton Territorial Hospital to support. As the Stanton Territorial Hospital supports the rest of the territory, we need to make sure that when we do go forward...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we encourage all residents in the Northwest Territories to call 8-1-1 for non-emergent questions on their health or their family's health, and we encourage all Northwest Territories residents to call 9-1-1 first before calling, you know, the health centre. Health centres are generally used when -- and that was -- but the thing is, is the change. The change management in small communities is this has been the model for so long and that's where they're so used to calling that they don't call 8-1-1 and they don't call 9-1-1; they call the health centre. And so...