Lesa Semmler

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the area of child and family services is really, I think, not just for foster families, for families, for the children. It is a sensitive area, and the goal of child and family services is always to return the children to their biological family or within their biological family. That is always the goal. And, you know, and I think what sometimes in foster care, some of these children do remain in these homes for a long period of time, and sometimes it takes families time to be able to, you know, do the things that they need to do to be able to get the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, within my portfolio, you know, I understand that the Member's frustration and I know that there are a lot of barriers around this department and areas where, you know, we have to protect the child's interest and sometimes that information, you know, doesn't -- we're not able to share the information freely. However, you know, whatever route that this Legislative Assembly chooses to go, I think there's a process that we have to follow as a consensus government, and I would look forward to looking at those types of options. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, how we are going to work with the Alberta Alzheimer's Society, NWT/Alberta, I know that there were conversations in sharing information; however, where we are with that, I can't give the Member an update as to the website. I will get back to the Member as to how we plan on putting that information out there or what the collaboration is at this time. So I'll leave it at that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the First Nation BC health authority structure is a lot different than in the territories. What they do is they collaborate all of their reserve health centres, so all of the health centres that fall on their reserves were before operated by Indigenous Service Canada. We, however, in the Northwest Territories do not have any First Nation funded directly reserve health centres and therefore we -- so they took that -- they drew that down within their own correlation with their health services. We have many different Indigenous governments. We are working in...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, with health care, access to health care, anything that's an insured service, any -- it doesn't matter whether you're treaty or not, you will have access to those services and we will get you to those appointments if you are the patient. Where it comes into always an issue is when the patient has the approval to travel but when there's no escort and the escort is denied. Those are the pieces that we're trying to work on. Because right now, you know, we have increased the amount of escorts over the past -- every two -- last two years, since I've been in here...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there are many things that are ongoing right now, but one of the things that we had to do that was really priority was the medical response. So that's our air ambulance. We had to negotiate a new contract, which is only negotiated every ten years. This is to make sure that anybody who needs emergency air ambulance out of a small community into the capital or from a regional centre to the capital or to the south for whatever care that they need, that was a priority that was done. The other piece is that we are working on right now is we are working with NIHB...

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following two documents: Additional Information for Follow-up to Oral Question 822-20(1): No-Show Appointment Rates in Healthcare Clinics; and, Additional Information for Follow-up Oral Question 899-20(1): Northwest Territories Cancer Statistics. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, right now online we do have the where we are with the medical travel. There's a portal online -- I can share it with the Members again -- on the progress that we're working on. But what I can do is also highlight that there is going to be a new manual, whether it's -- and if we can break some things down to our most common FAQs, that, you know, that could or -- and a general email box that people could probably send in some things. I can bring those back to my department to see how that can be done. I do believe that some of the work that will be coming out...

Sorry, Mr. Speaker. Some of the things that we're working on with -- yes, okay, because I was, like, lost. I thought we were moving on, and I didn't know you guys went back.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the piece around air ambulance and medivacs is to get the patient to care. And sometimes, unfortunately, there is no -- patients can't take -- or the plane can't take other family members due to the amount of space and getting -- it's about getting the patient to the care that they need. What I would recommend is that anybody who -- you know, if their family members are leaving, it's reaching out to medical travel prior to, you know, jumping in your vehicle and driving because there are processes in place and sometimes, you know, it's unfortunate we're...