Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wanted to ask further questions of the Minister of Health and Social Services, this time about supports available for community health centre nurses. So, first, how is either HSS or the health authority working to rebuild the successful model of continuous physician care that was being practiced five years ago, for example, in Behchoko and Fort Good Hope where a designated physician would be on call to support the community health nurse for non-emergent matters seven days a week? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife North. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for this question. You know, I know that right now Fort Good Hope, the physician model is currently being under evaluation now. The pilot has been ongoing. And when I was into the community and I even met with the physician that was the lead on that, they are hopefully to have the review completed by April 2026, and that work is actually going to be helping us to form, you know, when we do our -- with our model of care for small communities. As I said, improving the model of care in our small communities is and always the priority. And so as for the on call, I know I did raise it to ask questions just to -- because it was the first time, I've heard of it. I can follow up into it more to see when it stopped, why it stopped, or those kinds of information and behind that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So next, what options have been examined to take the pressure off community health nurses being on call after hours? For example, to have 8-1-1 or 9-1-1 or MED response field direct calls to what's now going to the on-call phone instead of community health nurses being the first point of contact after hours. So this could, for example, screen whether the call is actually an emergency, and it could help protect community health nurses if there are harassing phone calls that are coming. So what options are being examined to change the way on-call/after-hours calls are being fielded in small communities? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, at this point, there is no capacity to remove the responsibility from the CHN; however, you know, the CHN is still the most responsible and only provider able to handle this service within the current model of our -- the community model of care. But there are many different things that are going on right now, including primary care reform, Deh Cho's journey mapping, the work on small community model of care, which I spoke about in my statement today. We are improving continuity of core services delivering by both how other professions, like we just said, paramedics and LPNs can be implemented into the system. That is one of the areas where we are thinking that could be shared amongst, you know, the different health care providers because what is happening is, is the CHN is the one that's usually having to see them all hours of the night and then it closes the clinics the next day, and then they all get cancelled. So if we can have the paramedics being on call at night or somebody else, recognizing that community health nurses essentially cannot be replaced so we have to find better ways to support them. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. But to get clarification there, so obviously the community health nurse would have to be the one in a small community to offer the assistance or the care if they're the one in-charge. But when I'm wondering is whether the call could go through, for example, a 9-1-1 or an 8-1-1 just as, you know, people could call 9-1-1 in emergency and then that dispatcher would determine the nature of the emergency and then activate the appropriate emergency responder or person in-charge, such as the community health nurse, but having that extra screening could field out calls that are, you know, simply harassment or calls that are not an emergency to -- that the community health nurse would not have to respond to anyway but would avoid them having to be woken up in the middle of the night multiple times. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we encourage all residents in the Northwest Territories to call 8-1-1 for non-emergent questions on their health or their family's health, and we encourage all Northwest Territories residents to call 9-1-1 first before calling, you know, the health centre. Health centres are generally used when -- and that was -- but the thing is, is the change. The change management in small communities is this has been the model for so long and that's where they're so used to calling that they don't call 8-1-1 and they don't call 9-1-1; they call the health centre. And so the health centre always has a nurse on call for those emergencies as well because when you call 8-1-1 or if you call 9-1-1 and they redirect it to MED response, then MED response will be calling the nurse anyway. So the nurse is always on call. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Oral questions. Member from Monfwi.
