Lesa Semmler

Mr. Speaker, I want to provide the House with an update on the negotiations and discussions with the Government of Canada on the delivery of the federal NonInsured Health Benefits Program. This is a national program available to eligible First Nations and Inuit residents.

In the NWT, portions of the program are administered by the GNWT on behalf of Indigenous Services Canada, through a contribution agreement. Through this agreement, the Department of Health and Social Services is responsible for coordination of medical travel, arranging access to dental care and vision care services, and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, generally, clients who are in the care of medical escorts are not provided with or sorry, with medical escorts are not provided with nonmedical escorts. So that would be in the instances if somebody is medevaced. Air ambulance and emergency services are excluded under the NWT medical travel Policy. But the department is aware that and does acknowledge that there is an emergency service policy that could include escort criteria. Again, as I've just obtained this department and I know we're going to go through a fulsome review of our medical travel and how...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, Mr. Speaker, the funding through the community wellness and addiction recovery fund is to support Indigenous governments to deliver communitybased mental health and addiction recovery programs unique to their needs, and Indigenous governments may absolutely choose to use their funding for O and M and ontheland programs. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I can confirm we have things in place already, and I think the more and more we are starting to utilizing them to fill and train specialized nursing, we have a specialized nursing training program. We have the Targeted Academic Support Program. We have professional development initiative funding, which can all be accessed by current staff who wish to gain their certification to work in more specialized areas. And as mentioned, any RN who is interested to being trained in a specialty area can submit their request in a few different ways by applying to the...

Mr. Speaker, we only have two obstetric units in the Northwest Territories. One is at Stanton, one is in Inuvik, and that is currently where they are. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, evidencebased or not, we need a basic delivery service. We need birthing services. We need a birthing service that is going to be staffed. That's what we're working towards. And that is what we are focused on in getting a birthing service in Yellowknife that we can you know, stabilize. Adding you know, expanding midwifery is an extra, like I said, in Yellowknife. It's not an extra in Fort Smith, and it's not an extra in Hay River. And, you know, it expanded from Fort Smith to Hay River. It even expanded in Fort Smith, the more midwifery. And so right now, we're having a hard...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Tlicho Service Agency staffs theirs when when they're on the verge of having no nursing and I know that, from my understanding and this is why I know that there's five, is because everybody time I come to the House I always ask my department, so how many agency nurses we have? Because I know this is going to be a question here. And so but I do know that, you know, the Tlicho Service Agency does utilize them to keep their health centres open and they have, you know, vacancies over the summer and so they may have to utilize those if they cannot find...

The work that's being done in the obstetrics unit is guided by, you know, the staff feedback that was done. So I can speak to that.

As for the midwifery area that you know, midwifery, the positions that in Yellowknife that have been there you know, I think that is a separate discussion. The obstetrics stuff that's been going on and trying to maintain our basic service and trying to fill that gap on the obstetric, there has been work. There has been like I said in this House before, the staffing complement has changed, and that was at the recommendation of the staff the previous staff that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, since 2020, I think that is when we started using agency nurses, I don't have the number of the contracts and that's the level of detail that is. What we are doing is we're using nurses where they're not going to shut down services. And, you know, I hear that the Member this is something that, you know, he's raised many times in this House but then when you go out to the small communities and they're shut down and the services are we can't find a nurse, you know, those are the communities that, you know, may have to utilize a nurse. And so we can...

Mr. Speaker, I will say that I want the entire how we move patients in the Northwest Territories is what the focus I want to look at. How we move them, who's moving, what are the things that we cannot have to move people for. Is there ways that we can put things into communities that it's going to be less expensive in the long run. It's more of a fulsome review of how we move people for medical in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.