Lesa Semmler

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.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, again, I can commit to getting the wait time for the children back to the Member and to all the Members. I mean, we have -- we do track a lot of these. And the -- so what -- but within this, what I would like to say is that we have these positions. We are unable to -- you know, we advertise these positions. If people don't apply on them -- they're unionized positions. We aren't able to contract out the service. That is -- you know, so there's no means to fill these positions other than trying to get -- if we can get terms or, you know -- but we can't even -...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I can commit to getting that information back to the Member. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, yes, Mr. Speaker, I am committed to ensuring that health and social services space are safe, equitable, for all residents accessing the services and that everyone should be able to feel safe when they're coming into any one of our health services throughout the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to acknowledge the medical misgendering of this resident's medical file, and I would like to extend my sincere apology. I know my colleague has raised that they were frustrated, they were hurt, the hardship that it put on them having to deal with this for so many years. The details of why and how this didn't get done on a -- you know, when they tried to deal with it in person, I don't have those details. But what I can say is that we will make sure that this doesn't happen to any Northwest Territories' resident again. Thank you, Mr...

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document: Tobacco and Vapour Products Control Act and Smoking Control and Reduction Act Three-Year Annual Report 2020-2023. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I said, the program is ongoing. There are small changes that are being implemented as we move along. You know, we'll continue to hear from the Members and the constituents but from the other side too is that people are grateful that they're able to have appointments, they can preschedule them, they're triaging those that are going in early in the morning that are fasting. You know, there's different things that are going on. They're working with their -- you know, within the authority to make sure that prioritizing blood work gets booked in. So there are...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I mentioned, you know, this is a new program, so we've gone out publicly saying this is a new program. What this program has done is over the past month that it's been rolled out, we have seen 200 more patients this last month than we normally do in the lab in Yellowknife and so because there's changes, because, you know, there's certain things -- before we were getting a lot more complaints that there wasn't some structure, there wasn't time to book appointments, there wasn't same-day appointments in the lab, so right now what they're working on is ensuring that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, I don't have the level of that detail here as per each recommendation. You know, that is going to take some time to compile any of that data. And so I will take the question on notice. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.