Lesa Semmler

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I am pleased to present the 2024-2025 Main Estimates for the Department of Health and Social Services. Overall, the department's estimates propose an increase of $36.5 million, or 6 percent, over the 2023-2024 Main Estimates. These estimates support the mandate objectives for the Department of Health and Social Services while continuing to meet the GNWT's fiscal objectives to prioritize responsible and strategic spending.

Highlights of these proposed estimates include:

$28.3 million to address forced growth in a number of program areas, including the out of...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, you know, I think many of our communities are, you know, we have different models that are going on in our communities. We have job shares. We have term nurses. We have full-time indeterminant ones that have been there for years. The last resort that we want to use is agency nurses. And, you know, as a nurse I know that sometimes, yes, you're frustrated with that model but when you're the only one in there and that's the nurse that's going to come in and relieve you so you're not working 24 hours a day, you're very appreciative to have some time. So I hear the...

Yes. No, I appreciate the Members, you know, putting the word out there on the regional wellness councils because one of the things that I do as the Minister is I work closely with the leadership council, and they are the governing body of the Northwest Territories Health and Social Services Authority and they are -- you know, they get the direction on, you know, what our priorities are as well, and they are the ones that are the administrators of all of the health programs. So it's really important that the Northwest Territories realize that those regional wellness councils are the voice of...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Sorry, the $3.055 million is the community wellness and addiction recovery fund, the one that I keep kind of talking about that Indigenous governments can apply on. And that is separate from the mental wellness and addiction recovery capacity building fund -- or no, sorry, the mental wellness and addiction recovery fund. In the one here is, 125, is used for the youth addiction prevention and youth detox model.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, that is something that I cannot commit to in the House here, to creating a policy. As I mentioned yesterday, we spoke on many different areas. Within the medical travel policy, there are areas where there are gaps but medical travel -- like, according to our policy it is to help patients travel to an insured service. And that doesn't -- you know, and so if somebody is away then that's not part of medical travel. And the information -- and I will share that information with all Members of this House and that you can share them on your own social media, and...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, this is -- like I said, I'm sorry I can't give you a specific date or time. There are nurses that are going through this and being supported are different levels of where they are. And, you know, it can take up to one to two years for that specialized to be independent in this area. You know, we want to make sure that they have all the training that they need to be independent. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker and I thank the Member for raising this concern. You know, the more and more we talk about this, the more and more it becomes normalized, and we're able to work together to try and find solutions.

The Department of Health and Social Services, two programs currently available. We have the community suicide prevention fund and the community wellness and addiction recovery fund, which is a fund that we actually, from recommendations last government, was asked to be put together and have less it's more flexible for Indigenous governments to access.

The community...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for this question. Currently, yes, nurses can train in the Northwest Territories to be obstetric nurses. How they do that, you know, there's multiple different ways. Back in the day when I trained, it was more of a mentorship, and you take certifications. Now it's a little bit more technical. So they do have to have hours. They do have to have a mentor. Currently, within our OBS, there are nurses receiving training and becoming fully competent in this specialized area. And as a result of this training, we have increased our capacity. And...

Yes. Thank you.

I'm not sure how I answer quite that cheaper and smarter, providing health care services in the Northwest Territories to, you know, birthing people that are waiting to have babies is always going to be cheaper. Having staff that we can, you know using locums, bringing locums in, they you know, that's been one of the areas that we you know, even with locums, that is we try to hire fulltime first and then if we can't hire fulltime, then we go to terms, which locums are more for physicians. That's the term they use for physicians. We use terms, term contracts with nurses, which are fully...