All right, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate that. I want to return to the topic of walk-in clinics and, of course, this is not an extensive list of the people that work there, but there are people who take the samples and there are people who review the samples, and that's pretty much it. But, Mr. Speaker, when people arrive at 7:30 in the morning, there's long lines, you can't make phone calls because no one answers the phone, there's no chairs so people with mobility issues are standing there and struggling, and there's way more people there than the slots available for doing that. What can the Minister do to address that type of problem with this lab clinic situation? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Yellowknife Centre. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, you know, as this is brought up in the House, I will bring this back to NTHSSA and follow up as to how things are going in the lab and the walk-in clinic there, and if there's improvements that -- what recommendations that -- you know, what do they -- you know, to be able to carry out some of these things. However, at this time, there's not many things that I can say on the floor of this House, that I'd have to go back to NTHSSA as that falls under their authority. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate the willingness of the Minister. If she wants some simple suggestions, chairs, the little tags at the DMV --
(audio).
Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. And the problem is people show up there wanting to get their samples processed and there aren't enough staff to actually, as I said earlier, take the samples and analyze the samples. What happens to the samples that can't be analyzed locally? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate the Member, you know, and I will take him up on if he has any other recommendations, feel free to stop at my office and give me that list of recommendations. I'll bring them over to NTHSSA and see what they can do about that.
As for the lab recs that are -- any lab tests that cannot be done within the house, like there is a multiple types of tests that we do in-house at Stanton, and there are some that we -- they just don't have the capacity to continue to do all of those samples. They send them to Alberta through the contract that we have through the lab there. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm not sure I have to walk down to the office; I've already given her the suggestions and she's welcome by the way.
That said, Mr. Speaker, the Minister did go into the other area of where the samples are going. What type of analysis is being taken as to how much are going where, what does it cost, what does it change the process. Because I'm aware that section has requested more staffing. In other words, they put in submissions to increase the staff but someone in the chain of hierarchy keeps denying them the needed staff. And I'm curious as to what the reasoning is behind that. So the analysis and the reasons here. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife Centre. I think that's a dual question there, a double question. Now I wasn't tightening at the Member. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I will bring this back. And I know that we do have -- we do track the stats, and we do know what we send out. We do actually know what it costs us to send this out. So what I can do is I can get that information, and I can share it with the Member. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Oral questions. Member from Range Lake.
