Robert Hawkins

Mr. Speaker, I am glad the Minister drew in Royal Alex, because she is very adamant that this patient went to the Royal Alex. But I actually contacted the hospital; I contacted Capital Health, and she is not at Royal Alex. As a matter of fact, she’s at the U of A. So I seem to be a little…. And there’s no problem with the Royal Alex, but obviously the detail isn’t there.

The Minister said in her remarks yesterday that she spent all day trying to do her best to get this patient into a room. There is a reference to contacting or finding information about Calgary and Grande Prairie. Well, Mr...

Well, if I try really hard and understand that answer, what I’ll do is I’ll assume that there must be some proviso and detail that talks about potential status if the hospital is full.

Mr. Speaker, when I raised the issue about notice or communications to the Minister’s office vis-à-vis through Stanton or whatever from Capital Health and it talked about beds being full, the Minister said there was nothing, but I am getting indications that there was information passed to this government through Capital Health. I would like to be clear: does Capital Health inform this government in any way if...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The 2008–2009 Review will examine:

whether progress has been made since the changes to the Official Languages Act in 2003;

whether the government implements and administers the act effectively and efficiently;

whether the objectives and goals of the preamble are being met;

whether the changed roles and responsibilities of the Minister responsible for Official Languages improved the administration and implementation of the act;

whether the changed role of the Languages Commissioner as an ombudsperson improved the implementation of the act;

whether the new Official Languages...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, I’ll help the Minister: there’s Grande Prairie; there’s Calgary; there’s Saskatoon. There are other places if the Minister is looking for suggestions to consider.

What is the Minister doing to make sure we have recognizable service levels defined in our contract with Capital Health? If she chooses to do nothing, why isn’t she doing something on this issue?

Is that the actual statement in the contract, or does the contract actually take the time to identify what is considered reasonable wait times for Northern residents who’ve contracted specifically with Capital Health? Is that exactly how it works?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ll certainly, once again, accept the offer to review this file. I think that is a good first step for this family. Still, there’s quite a bit of vagueness on whether the Minister will provide a written apology to this family. I certainly hope the Minister will clear this up.

We need to be ultimately clear. Do we allow doctors — and this is certainly not a slight against doctors — to send people to hospitals where they can’t be treated? I want to be clear on that. Do we allow doctors to send patients south to hospitals that have no beds for them? In such cases I’m...

Mr. Speaker, all those hospitals in Alberta, all those hospitals in Calgary and Edmonton and elsewhere, yet there were no beds. I’m wondering who is taking responsibility for sending one of our patients, who was in dire need of serious medical care, to a hospital, or certainly a city, that has no beds. Is the Minister willing to take responsibility specifically for that and write an apology on that issue so this family has some healing and can go forward?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to return to item 8 on our agenda, oral questions. Thank you.

Unanimous consent granted.

Mr. Speaker, I certainly wish we were in a court of law so we could treat the Minister like a hostile witness to get her to answer the question. The answer wasn’t in there anywhere. My question was about the detail of communication.

All indications are that there is information that flows from Capital Health to the Northwest Territories through Capital Health, maybe through to Stanton, then it gets to the Minister’s office. So, Mr. Speaker, I will have to find another way to say the same question: is there any type of communication that gives the detail that beds are full or not?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions will be to the Minister of Health today. I’ll be following up on both my Member’s statement and my questions from yesterday, which addressed my concern about this young mother, two in tow, a three month old nursing baby with her, who had trouble getting a hospital room and waited 34 hours.

I was reading Hansard questions yesterday. To understand some of the complexity, the frustration I’m feeling on this side of the House…. The Minister said we send people….that we use Capital Health services, because services like urology…. Well, Mr. Speaker, I was...