Lesa Semmler

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, within health and social services, there are core services -- standards do exist throughout the Northwest Territories but right now, what's happening is we are reviewing those and focusing on updating a lot of those core service standards to ensure better supports and guidance for health and social services authorities implementing these standards, and that's one of the things that we are focusing on. And hopefully that these recommendations from that review will help to move these next steps forward by this summer that we will have that finalized. Thank...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, what I would like to say is I would like to welcome and recognize the healthcare providers that are here today. Their continuous efforts to caring for our residents and the work that we're doing in this House every day to try and improve that, it's the feedback that we hear from them. Like I've said in the House many times, this is a big aircraft carrier to turn and I'm trying to turn this aircraft carrier. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, you know, and everyone is aware that, you know -- and I'm not going to speak for Alberta and their rules. And I know that their legislation does speak to puberty blockers before the age of 16 and surgeries before they're age 18. So when the Member speaks to top surgeries, yes, that's accurate. And also the conversation that I had in person with the Minister, and I am going to be going down to Alberta to meet with the -- you know, to schedule a meeting with the health Minister there. They have switched portfolios, so there is a new health Minister that will...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this was one of the reasons why, you know, we have an anesthetist, we have physicians that have -- we have to have the backup for cesarean sections to be able to provide services for labour and delivery and, you know, our physicians also need to go on vacation. So with the locum, the new locum rates, we're hoping that we can encourage locum and aesthetics and, you know, and GPs to come up to help with our physicians so that they can take the time off that they need as well as the nurses. As long as I've been in Inuvik, the nurses that do provide the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to ask that this House respect that the public administrator's position is the public administrator, and that we honour that. We don't -- you know, we don't call each other names in here, and we shouldn't call people that we have working for us different terms.

Point of Order

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, and I appreciate this question. Within the last week, we've been talking a lot about -- myself and with the leadership of both the department and the NTHSSA on the struggles that we're hearing, not just from physicians, it's from MLAs that have raised issues on behalf of them, locums have brought forward to the senior physicians, like the territorial medical director. And so what we're looking at is we're finding that the general practitioners, you know, when they get their two letters of reference and they've got their letter of good standing, that process...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I want to -- first, I want to say yes, that is part of the process. The second piece that I just want to explain a little bit more is that one of the things that we struggle with, and this is what usually ends up being the biggest issue that comes to my office when it is an NIHB client, is when the escort is being requested as an exception because it doesn't meet the criteria that the federal government lays out for a non-medical escort, is that we don't have the authority to approve that exception. That exception has to be sent to the federal government, and our...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, there are -- you know, it's based on the community, again, but there are CHRs that are more comfortable doing different age groups and so, you know, sometimes you'll see CHRs that might be more comfortable being in the schools or working with elders and less comfortable talking about sexually, you know, transmitted diseases. But those are things that if the community is needing those things, they should raise them within -- you know, with the CHR, with the health centre that they live in, with the regional council -- regional wellness councils. There's members...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the community health representative in the regions, along with the regional wellness councils, the staff within that community, we don't audit what they do because the health promotion activities are driven from the community that they represent, and so we don't want to set, you know, things in motion that necessarily are dictated by somebody that's, you know, sitting somewhere in the region or in the capital to -- especially in the small communities. So we encourage that autonomy in those communities. So if there CHRs in those community, they can work...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate this question, yes, and non-seniors, because there is no income threshold on -- or sorry, seniors, there's no income threshold so those just automatically renew every year. Because the extended health program is based on income, there is an annual CRA that needs to be added to their application. However, I've directed my department to put in clearer processes as this -- you know, we're hearing this, that there's vacancies -- or there's gaps in people that are applying. So we'll take that back, and we'll look at how we can streamline that process better or...