Robert Hawkins

Is that the actual statement in the contract, or does the contract actually take the time to identify what is considered reasonable wait times for Northern residents who’ve contracted specifically with Capital Health? Is that exactly how it works?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ll certainly, once again, accept the offer to review this file. I think that is a good first step for this family. Still, there’s quite a bit of vagueness on whether the Minister will provide a written apology to this family. I certainly hope the Minister will clear this up.

We need to be ultimately clear. Do we allow doctors — and this is certainly not a slight against doctors — to send people to hospitals where they can’t be treated? I want to be clear on that. Do we allow doctors to send patients south to hospitals that have no beds for them? In such cases I’m...

Mr. Speaker, all those hospitals in Alberta, all those hospitals in Calgary and Edmonton and elsewhere, yet there were no beds. I’m wondering who is taking responsibility for sending one of our patients, who was in dire need of serious medical care, to a hospital, or certainly a city, that has no beds. Is the Minister willing to take responsibility specifically for that and write an apology on that issue so this family has some healing and can go forward?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to return to item 8 on our agenda, oral questions. Thank you.

Unanimous consent granted.

Mr. Speaker, I certainly wish we were in a court of law so we could treat the Minister like a hostile witness to get her to answer the question. The answer wasn’t in there anywhere. My question was about the detail of communication.

All indications are that there is information that flows from Capital Health to the Northwest Territories through Capital Health, maybe through to Stanton, then it gets to the Minister’s office. So, Mr. Speaker, I will have to find another way to say the same question: is there any type of communication that gives the detail that beds are full or not?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions will be to the Minister of Health today. I’ll be following up on both my Member’s statement and my questions from yesterday, which addressed my concern about this young mother, two in tow, a three month old nursing baby with her, who had trouble getting a hospital room and waited 34 hours.

I was reading Hansard questions yesterday. To understand some of the complexity, the frustration I’m feeling on this side of the House…. The Minister said we send people….that we use Capital Health services, because services like urology…. Well, Mr. Speaker, I was...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to use my Member’s statement today to trumpet the efforts of one individual in our business community, in our Yellowknife private sector, who stepped up to the plate, when government sometimes is uncomfortable, on environmental education for youth.

That person is Yellowknife’s Chris Johnston. He heard last week the lukewarm answers from our Premier about purchasing the documentary film “Water is Life.” He heard — and I quote from the October 7, 2008, page 22, unedited Hansard — that we will be prepared to “try and see what we can do to get this information out to...

The Minister just doesn’t seem to understand the question. I’m not asking or stating that the problem was in sending her to Edmonton. That’s not the problem. The problem is that she had to wait in emergency 34 hours to get a room. There seems to be no concern about an apology to this family. There seems to be no concern or thought as to saying: well, maybe if this hospital is full and if there are no rooms in this hospital, why could we not have sent her somewhere else, be it in Edmonton or Calgary?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my statement today I talked about a woman who had to wait 34 hours in order to be let into a room and suffered from a stroke. She was sent down to Edmonton, as I talked about in my Member’s statement. I felt that this was a disgusting way for government services and funding to show that the standard of health is completely unreasonable and unfair.

My questions will be focused on the Minister of Health and Social Services and specific only to this incident. I want to be very clear. I’d like to know what happened in this situation. I want to know what the Minister is...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Over the Thanksgiving weekend something horrible happened. A young mother in her youthful prime had a stroke, and because of her condition level, she needed to be sent to an Edmonton hospital to meet her needs. So she was medevacked to Edmonton Monday night and arrived around 11 p.m. with her daughter and three month old nursing son in tow.

As anyone can imagine, this is a difficult situation, but what can be noted here at this specific point is that it has the appearance that the system may be working. That is, you get sick, and the publicly funded system, via taxpayer...