Lesa Semmler

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, at this time, no, because -- I think the Member will speak to and has spoke to a lot of the work that was done in the previous governments that had a collaborated approach to doing this. As of now, we do not have that and so because -- and then the delay of the project and the change in the project, I think right now where we're at is just going for the schematic design and it's going to be put out to -- like I said, it's going to be put out for RFP publicly to be posted winter of 2025. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as anyone in this House knows, the trend over the last 20 years of the NT -- like, of the health authorities have had, you know, their own share of trying to manage a health system, operational system, for the residents of the Northwest Territories and have had deficits over the years to be able to continue services so that way when things are budgeted, that when the day they run out, those services don't stop. That's why they have a deficit budget. And so therefore where we are today is now since past COVID, we are seeing more people accessing the services...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the project approved for planning only in 2024-2025. The geotechnical analysis has been completed. The functional programming, including operational planning, is underway. And an RFP for schematic design and class C cost estimates will be posted this winter. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I will have to get back to the Member for that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, home care provides -- in all of our communities, we have home support workers and they provide bathing and making meals, nursing services for wound care and health checks, help with organization, and taking medication. In some communities, they provide palliative care for those who are dying and want to be close to home and family members. They loan out equipment, such as bathroom equipment and walkers. They do provide respite care to help out in the home so caregivers can get a break. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am unaware of how many children are on the waitlist in the Tlicho region. But what I can do is I can commit to getting those numbers. I also would like to highlight that, you know, the waitlist, yes -- however there is a waitlist, our speech and language pathologists that we do have are seeing -- and what they're doing is they're triaging so they're seeing youth under 5 and then youth between 16 -- 6 and 17 who have severe needs, so safety issues -- so speech-language is not just for speech but it's also for swallowing, so if there -- we're utilizing the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don't have the actual numbers of how many speech-language pathologists that we have. But what I do know is that many of those positions that we do have across the Northwest Territories are vacant. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, diversity and inclusion training is available to all health and social services system staff, including specific workshops on the diversity, inclusion in the workplace training, 2SLGBTQQIA+ 101 inclusive workplace awareness training, mitigating unconscious bias training. They also have PDI that they can use for other training. There is other self-learning training if health and social services staff wish to take on, but these are the training that we do have through diversity inclusion. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And you know, Mr. Speaker, I would be glad -- and I know the Member, you know, has previously invited me to visit her communities that she is the MLA for and those discussions that we can have during that time. But just to be clear, the discussion is at a high level right now. Like, MACA does have money for first responders. I can't speak to the details of that. I have enough under my own portfolio, but I know health and social services does not -- like, the nurses in the health centre are not first responders. So we're trying to work together to try to see what can we...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, all of our home -- all of our communities have home support workers and in in the larger centres, we have home care nurses. In the smaller centres -- smaller communities that have nurses, they have a task as part of one of their duties is to do the home care assessments for seniors at home. And like I mentioned in all of the other, they're the ones that do the assessments as to what that elder needs in their home and then they assign those duties to the person -- or the home care worker in that community. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.