EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
With this program, we’re hoping to provide the involvement of elders from the community and other individuals who could take people out on the land.
We would also involve alcohol and drug treatment people in different communities, wherever the individuals come from, and provide them with some training as well so that when people return to their communities or their homes, they can be supported after the 28 days.
If they need someone to turn to, they know who to call.
The 28 days doesn’t sound like a long time.
It’s a long time, but the key part of it will be aftercare when the program ends.
Ms. Ell: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (interpretation) I’ll move to another topic.
The 2010-11 suicide prevention strategy was developed in collaboration with NTI, the RCMP, and the Embrace Life Council.
What is the current status of this strategy?
Which components of the strategy will be implemented in 2012-13?
As we all know, suicide is a high priority issue for the Government of Nunavut and its partners to work on.
The strategy was tabled in 2010 and then the action plan was tabled in the last sitting. Now we’re working on the action plan.
A partnership implementation committee was struck to work with all the recommendations in the action plan. My understanding is it has been going quite well.
If you can bear with me, I can list some of them. The partnership implementation committee was struck and that’s all the partners involved in the strategy action plan.
There’s interdepartmental collaboration and collaboration with community level staff. That has been strengthened.
We have two territorial suicide intervention specialists working on the action plan.
A gap analysis was completed. They are using the aboriginal health integration funds.
All of our government departments have protocols in place to respond to Nunavummiut at risk at the community level.
We’re accessing a proposal for funds through the Territorial Health Access Fund that is being reviewed to increase the funding for youth centres in the territory. That’s only a proposal. We have to wait for a decision once it’s submitted.
The database to track provisional or registered ASIST training is functional. I think I mentioned earlier in another question this week that there have been over 500 Nunavummiut trained.
We continue to offer those ASIST training workshops in all communities where communities request. I mentioned that as well this morning at the Baffin mayors’ meeting.
ASIST is for first responders to help identify people who are potentially at risk of taking their own lives and get them to help and get them to counsellors or mental health specialists.
We are working on the mental health framework. As mentioned earlier also, we do have some mental health graduates from the Mental Health Diploma program that we will be placing in communities throughout Nunavut on April 1.
Quite a lot has been done. If you read or heard earlier this week as well, I mentioned that we’re working on acquiring the old boarding home in Iqaluit here for a new mental health facility.
We’re taking steps and, I think, quite positive steps to work on the issue of suicide and mental health in the territory.
Ms. Ell: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Are you able to provide an update on the current mental health facility that you are talking about in Iqaluit, the current situation as to when renovations will start and what the expected timeline is for that to be open?
Earlier today, I gave first and second reading to the supp bill that contains the request for funds to acquire that building.
If it’s approved in the House, we’re hopeful that we could have the plans to proceed early in the fiscal year so that we could renovate the facility and have renovations [completed] by the end of this calendar year.
We don’t have the exact date, but within the next 9 to 12 months.
In regard to individuals who travel to receive medical procedures or for individuals in the communities, is there a patient release form for procedures? It’s my understanding that in other jurisdictions, before a procedure occurs, a patient would sign a release form giving permission to this.
Do we do that for our patients as well?
Mr. Chairman, we don’t have that information immediately available; we will have to follow up and provide that information.
In terms of the electronic health records, my understanding was that in Iqaluit, they’re using it and then it’s going to be rolling out into the communities.
Specifically for the handling of electronic records for patients, are we going to be asked to fill out a release form as well so that we have an understanding of what information is being collected and where it’s being held?
When you work at the school, you sign a release form where you’re using computers and whatnot.
By showing up and receiving medical care, are we giving consent to have the information collected and stored electronically?
Mr. Chairman, if I understand Mr. Elliott correctly, the answer would be we wouldn’t share that information outside of our own health system.
In terms of who actually has access to the information, I think, again in terms of treatment, you show up at the health centre… .
What I’m trying to do is get a better understanding of how and where the electronic health records are going.
I know there are advertisements that they have on TV and federally. For example, with your income tax and your tax information, you can log in and find out what your RRSP contributions are going to be, whether you owe money or don’t owe money, if you have a family, you can actually add… .
Is this where we’re going in terms of linking up with the federal government or are these two totally different systems?
Mr. Chairman, it will be two different systems.
Again just to help me understand, let’s say I show up in Arctic Bay and in terms of the electronic health records, we’re not actually doing away with the paper records as well.
There will be duplicate sets within the community of your file and then there will be information input from the community as well.
Hon. Keith Peterson: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank Mr. Elliott for the questions.
He’s getting into technical territory that I’ll allow Ms. Voth to reply to.
To answer the question, if we’re talking about backup procedures, we will not have a paper system in the community centres when it is fully implemented. What we will have is every community centre will have its own server.
For example, during the day while they’re actually doing their clinical work, they will be working from an Iqaluit server and at the end of the day, that data would be downloaded to the community server.
If there was a situation such as we had I think it was on October 6, they wouldn’t be able to access their satellite. They do have a network on site, so they would have information up to the end of the day of the previous day.
We don’t intend to have a paper system as well.
Everything will be digital, including X-rays and doctors notes, etcetera, nurses notes.
Will that include prescriptions as well in terms of transferring that information back and forth?
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Elliott. Minister Peterson.
Ms. Voth tells me yes.
Again in terms of the privacy and making sure that our records… . I think, from the questions I have asked before under the other division where the policies are, that makes sense in terms of the bigger picture.
How are you guaranteeing privacy and confidentiality in the communities, like the nurses would have to log on with a password so you would know it was them that go into the health records to be able to access and input information?
Health centres are very busy. There is lots of staff there.
So I was hoping to get a little bit more information about who has the passwords and who will be accessing the information.
Hon. Keith Peterson: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank Mr. Elliott for the question. I’m a little bit familiar with this.
I have gone to the health centre in Cambridge Bay a couple of times in the last year.
There is a receptionist who logs on and then accesses my information, and then when I see the doctor or nurse, they also log on. So everybody that would be cleared to access the system would have passwords. They have, I believe, a certain level of security clearance to access different types of records.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Minister Peterson. Mr. Elliott.
Again with my initial question at the beginning about the patient release for procedures, that is a separate issue from this, so I just wanted to point that out. I thank God I’ve never had to deal with having a pacemaker or having decisions based around my health. I have been really healthy, so I’ve never had to be in the health system that way where you had to sign to consent to different things.
One of the things that were brought to my attention by one of my constituents was the fact that patients in Nunavut don’t have to sign consent forms. With that said and you saying that you didn’t have the information readily available, I just wanted to clarify that before and make sure that you realize that it was separate from the electronic records.
My next question is: as the minister will be aware, the high rate of suicide in Nunavut is a serious concern. If similar rates occurred across Canada, it would probably be declared a national emergency.
On page 141 of its business plan, one of the department’s priorities for 2012-13 will be to implement those components of the Nunavut Suicide Prevention Strategy Action Plan that are led by the department.
On page 10 of the actual action plan, the Department of Health and Social Services was to “Develop and implement protocols and mechanisms to record information on suicide attempts in Nunavut.” Can the minister describe what progress has been made on this action and what specific steps will be taken to meet this objective?
Hon. Keith Peterson: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If Mr. Elliott will give us some time, we will try to find that information.
Mr. Elliott: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Can the minister clarify whether or not information is collected on what kinds of services were accessed by individuals before or after their suicide attempt? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Hon. Keith Peterson: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank Mr. Elliott for the question. As I responded earlier to Ms. Elliott or Ms. Ell… .
You guys are sitting too close to each other.
We are working very hard and diligently on the action plan, all the partners, and this is one area as well.
The deputy minister informs me that the RCMP is beginning to collect that data. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Elliott: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On page 5 or section 2.0 of the action plan, one of the things it says is to “Provide additional core funding to ensure stable operation” and that’s for support to the Embrace Life Council itself. When I flip through and if you go to H-9 of the Summary of Grants and Contributions, the Embrace Life Council still receives the same amount of the $248,000.
Is that because more funding is coming from one of the other partners? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I’ll ask Deputy Ma to respond to this; he’s very familiar with the issue.
So just by way of background, prior to this current fiscal year, we had an individual who was seconded from our department to the Embrace Life Council. In this current fiscal year, we provided funding to the Embrace Life Council because that secondment ended. So part of that funding was for the salary and compensation of an executive director of the Embrace Life Council and part of it was for office administration.
We just actually recently signed a contribution agreement for the balance of this fiscal year to help Embrace Life to promote their activities and to let communities and organizations know that they’re back in the game, so to speak.
They actually have another executive director, so they have a new executive director who just started recently.
What we would do in 2012-13 is we would allocate a portion of the Nunavut Aboriginal Youth Suicide Prevention Strategy monies to Embrace Life.
So they’re basically going to be our agent on a pilot basis.
What I will say is that with the recent changes at the Embrace Life Council, we have a much better working relationship than we had in the past.
I am personally very hopeful that our relationship will improve and that we’re actually going to address the issue of suicide in the territory.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Ma. Mr. Elliott.
So with that being said, the $248,000 that’s allocated, you’re assuring us that that is the core funding that will provide the stability for the Embrace Life Council.
Yes, Mr. Chairman, that will be the core funding and we will try to find some additional funding to carry out some other activities in the new fiscal year.
Again, from the actual implementation plan, objective 1.3 was the memorandum of understanding and related protocols to mandate collaboration between the Department of Education and Health and Social Services that “will support a proactive case conferencing approach at the community level for children demonstrating indicators of behaviour that put them at risk.”
Is this memorandum of understanding complete?
We are diligently working on it. It’s not complete yet.
As of January of this year, 1.4, the objective within the implementation plan, was to see the establishment of a referral process between Health and Social Services workers and Education.
I was wondering if you could explain how that system is set up and how the referral process operates.
He’s throwing them at us fast and furious here, and we can’t keep up with our papers down here.
A committee has been struck and they’re working on it, and we’re hoping to fund it through funding from THAF, the Territorial Health Access Fund.
On page 5 of the implementation plan, which is 2.4 of the objectives, the anticipated results of that objective was a clear understanding of what resources were going to be needed to improve the ability to respond and effectively to suicidal behaviour by children.
I’m wondering if those resources or the resource list has been complete.
That will be part of the same work that we’re doing, as I answered in the previous question.
Again, on page 5, objective 2.6 is “Provide culturally and age appropriate grief counselling.”
I know I did a Member’s Statement on this in terms of the need for grief counselling in the territory. The completion date for that is April of 2012.
I’m wondering if the minister could give us an update on how that objective is going.
I thank Mr. Elliott again.
I share his concern for this action plan.
I can assure him that I have asked a number of questions and I will keep my officials working on this. It is important for our territory and there are quite a lot of what they call actions and tasks.
There are quite a lot. I was reading it a few weeks ago. We’re one of the partners, so everybody has a role to play.
We’re one of the four partners. I can assure the member that we are working on it. I can’t give him an update on that particular question, but our officials are hard at work on this action plan.
Objective 2.9 is to increase support to the Nunavut Kamatsiaqtut Help Line. I’m just wondering if the minister could update me on that.
I was looking through the grants and contributions, but I wasn’t able to actually see what was provided in terms of increased support, whether that was manpower, PYs, or whether that was funding.
We are waiting for those folks to have conversations with us. We need to see a business plan and discuss it with them.
At this time, we will go to another member. There are two names on the list.
I want to ask about nursing stations in the communities. Blood samples have to be taken from patients at the health centres for testing at southern laboratories.
In the Kitikmeot, when patients give blood samples for testing, the samples reach the laboratories in many cases, but the samples are usually too poor for testing and many patients have to provide another blood sample for testing.
I wondered what the reason was. When I questioned why this was the case, the answer I received was that there was only one airplane that could transport medical products. How can we improve this situation in the Kitikmeot region?
Many people have to provide blood samples for testing.
With the extreme long distance between our communities and the southern laboratories in Edmonton, this blood sample stemming from the smaller communities has to go through smaller airlines until it reaches Yellowknife, where it catches the southbound jet for Edmonton if it is lucky, and then it gets sent down.
We hear that this causes problems if the sample doesn’t catch the southbound jet.
I wonder what the department is doing to improve the logistical challenges related to this procedure. Is the department looking for testing laboratories closer to home?
It’s not just the blood samples that have to be tested, but it includes other samples requiring testing. Some laboratories are located in Yellowknife, if I’m correct, with some in Edmonton.
I would like this clarified for my own understanding.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Ms. Ugyuk. Minister Peterson.
It is problematic for us to the degree that we have no control over the weather or the planes going mechanical.
Once the blood samples are shipped, they would be in the care of the shipping company or the airline.
If the plane doesn’t fly because of a storm or doesn’t get to its destination to make a freight connection, we really have no control over that, but we are concerned about it.
I always tell people, if I’m flying, I’ll be in Yellowknife, planes and weather permitting. We really have no control over those situations, but we are concerned about it because it requires the patient to provide another blood sample.
That is inconvenient for them.
I thank the minister for that clear response.
This other matter that I have been informed about is with respect to the utilization of just one airline. I was told that the Department of Health has a contract with only one airline for transportation of these medical samples.
The suspicion is that this may be the barrier causing the problems for these samples.
Is this indeed the situation in this case?
We’re not aware of that situation.
The medical patient travel contract is held by Canadian North, which is an Inuit owned airline. My understanding is that the department has a contract with the airline. I would like to have that explained so that I can understand the situation.
From the information I have received, the government has several contracts with Inuit owned companies or bodies.
In our case, in the Kitikmeot, the assumption is that we are part of the Canadian North ownership group.
Since it’s an Inuit owned business, the assumption is held by the government that we are part owners.
Due to this assumption, most medical travel goes through this airline since it is contracted out to them.
I would like to know if this is indeed the case in our region.
I thank Ms. Ugyuk for her question.
Yes, there is a contract with Canadian North.
The airline is benefiting because they make good money on the medical travel contract as an Inuit owned company if approved by the Inuit bodies.
I believe that the service they provide is already under contract. As an example, the blood samples collected have to be transported to the southern locations without spoilage.
Are all of these details being reviewed when the contracts are being let?
I would like to get clarification on this matter, please.
Hon. Keith Peterson: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank Ms. Ugyuk for the question.
Earlier when I said Canadian North, it’s owned by Nunasi, but that’s for patients. We’re uncertain about the question regarding the shipping of blood samples.
We would have to dig into that and find that information for you.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Minister Peterson. Ms. Ugyuk.
The other matter I want to ask about is the community of Gjoa Haven doesn’t have a working X-ray machine in their health centre.
Will this machine be replaced or will we have to wait for an entirely new computer to make the unit work?
If X-ray machines are not insured, they cannot be replaced. The community has been waiting for quite a while for this X-ray machine.
Hon. Keith Peterson: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank Ms. Ugyuk for commenting about Gjoa Haven. Mr. Chairman, in one of the supp bills, there is a request for funding for digital X-ray machines for the various health centres in Nunavut.
Mr. Enook (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m writing so many questions that I’m running out of ink. I would like to make a motion to report progress for today.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Enook. There’s a motion on the floor to report progress and the motion is not debatable. All those in favour of the motion, please raise your hand.
Thank you. Opposed.
Thank you. We understand that the motion is carried. I will now rise to report progress.
Mr. Ningeongan: Mr. Speaker, your committee has been considering Bill 24 and the main estimates, and would like to report progress.
A reminder of the meeting of the Standing Committee on Oversight of Government Operations and Public Accounts at nine o’clock in the morning in the Nanuq Boardroom.
This House stands adjourned until Thursday, the first day of March, at 1:30 p.m.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Pages 1938 – 2001
Opening Prayer 1938
Ministers’ Statements 1938
Members’ Statements 1941
Returns to Oral Questions 1944
Oral Questions 1944
Tabling of Documents 1962
Second Reading of Bills 1962
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters 1965
Report of the Committee of the Whole 2000
Orders of the Day 2001
Thursday, March 1, 2012 1938
130 – 3(3): Nunavut Supports Artists’ Resale Rights (Taptuna) 1938
131 – 3(3): Curriculum Resources in Nunavut (Aariak) 1939
132 – 3(3): Dedication and Professionalism Demonstrated by Nunavut Arctic College and the Community of Iqaluit Applauded (Shewchuk) 1939
133 – 3(3): Nunavummi Nangminiqaqtunik Ikajuuti (NNI) Policy Review (Aariak) 1940
189 – 3(3): 2012 TV Nunavut Conference (Ell) 1941
190 – 3(3): Successful Start to Winter Turbot Fishery (Oshutapik) 1942
191 – 3(3): Northern Youth Abroad (Elliott) 1942
192 – 3(3): Kugluktuk Participants at the Arctic Winter Games (Taptuna) 1943
193 – 3(3): Qikiqtarjuaq Participants at the Arctic Winter Games (Arreak) 1944
Return to Oral Question 259 – 3(3): Establishment of Total Allowable Take of the Southern Hudson Bay Polar Bear Subpopulation (Arreak) 1944
289 – 3(3): Fire Safety Inspections (Ell) 1944
290 – 3(3): Security at Nunavut Airports (Enook) 1945
291 – 3(3): Community Freezers (Ningeongan) 1947
292 – 3(3): Government of Nunavut Policies Regarding Construction Contracts (Ningark) 1948
293 – 3(3): Safety and Security of Students (Curley) 1951
294 – 3(3): Affordable Housing and Nunavut Trust (Elliott) 1953
295 – 3(3): Total Allowable Harvest of Polar Bears (Rumbolt) 1954
296 – 3(3): Alberta Curriculum and Entrance Exams (Oshutapik) 1956
297 – 3(3): Inuit Societal Values (Tapardjuk) 1958
160 – 3(3): Quttiktuq Constituency Newsletter (Elliott) 1962
161 – 3(3): Interim Report of Members’ Absences from Sittings of the House and Meetings of Committees and Caucuses for the Period October to December of 2011 (Speaker) 1962
162 – 3(3): Report to the Management and Services Board on Procurement and Contracting Activities for the Legislative Assembly for the Year 2010-2011 (Speaker) 1962
008 – 3(3): Review of the Patient/Client Complaints Procedure of the Department of Health and Social Services (Tapardjuk) 1990
Bill 28 – Write-off of Assets Act, 2011-2012 – Second Reading 1962
Bill 29 – Write-off of Assets Act, No. 1, 2010-2011 – Second Reading 1963
Bill 30 – Building Code Act – Second Reading 1963
Bill 31 – An Act to Amend the Consumer Protection Act – Second Reading 1964
Bill 32 – An Act to Amend the Legal Services Act – Second Reading 1964
Bill 33 – An Act to Amend the Labour Standards Act – Second Reading 1964
Bill 24 – Appropriation (Operations & Maintenance) Act, 2012-2013 – Health and Social Services – Consideration in Committee 1965
Before we proceed, I would like to ask Mr. Ningeongan if he could lead us off with a prayer, please.