Lesa Semmler

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, having the dialysis equipment in Inuvik, you know, we have a lot of people that might need that have kidney disease but not all of them, and then I think in the territories we have 568 residents living with some degree of kidney disease, and then 87 clients with stage 4/5 renal disease, and those are the people that are potentially, if not already, on dialysis. Yellowknife has the capacity for a certain amount. Hay River, I think, is they are at capacity now. And, you know, what I'm willing to do for the Member is to review how many clients, you know, in...

Yes. Yes, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm not sure I understand if the question is the direction from the headquarters or because in all of the regions, we have regional diabetes educators. We have community health representative workers that work with you know, with health promotion and health in that area so if the you know, if there's a specific question, I would try to get the answer for the Member. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I thank the Member for raising this. In the small communities, we you know, we tend to get a lot of concerns we gotten a lot of concerns in this House when I was a Member, and we continue to hear stories but what I can say is we like, I cannot comment on individual cases in this House, but every report that every time there's a complaint, every report that's given to you know, that is put forward is looked into.

The other thing that I wanted to say is, you know, the Office of Client Experience is a new department. It had its oneyear...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for that question. Mr. Speaker, you know, we've heard in this House many times from many members, especially the representatives from the small communities, on health care in the small communities and, you know, we were we're going not just the Northwest Territories but Canada has been struggling with health care service providers, getting hiring permanent nursing, permanent doctors, so I think that there has been some work done. And I've mentioned this, you know, working with the paramedics in the small communities when needed to make...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to be clear. Diabetes is a disease on its own. Kidney disease is a separate disease. It affects the kidneys and it's not you know, it's not the same. So although we have you know, on one hand we have lots of people with diabetes and, yes, we do need and we have those supports in all the communities, like the testing, the medication. But for dialysis, you know, there's other options as well. Like, there's peritoneal dialysis, which we do have I think three patients in the territory. They don't have to move to Yellowknife because of the level that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, you know, I guess I'm confused. With diabetes, people see access outside of Yellowknife. They access the physician. They are able to get their prescriptions for their you know, the medication that they're on. They're able to get the you know, the necessary tools that they need to check their blood sugar. There's many this is available outside of Yellowknife. So I can look into further what patients, if they are travelling to Yellowknife for diabetes services but I you know, I'll just leave it at that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, if an out-of-territory referral is made for an NWT resident, including child or youth, and medically necessary service is not available in Alberta, we arrange to have these services made available in other locations in Canada. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, yes, I will commit to doing that and making sure that there is some kind of information that can go out to Members and to -- a communique on how this list is monitored. Thank you.

Thank you, Member, for the question. And after our back and forth on this question the last time, I did try to get more and more of the information that I would be able to provide to the Member. And so the list -- this list has been in place -- it sits within the -- like, the -- it's an electronic list. So people -- and it's monitored regularly. And the information that I can provide is that there -- if there's a need for a patient that, you know, has chronic illness and things like that, then they, you know, they may, you know, be able to be assigned a doctor sooner. As for how long people...