EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
Without a contract that there was a medical health had some obligation to provide either one of the carriers to be on stand-by.
It would just call up someone go fly to Baker Lake because there is an emergency.
So there was never arrangement made with more than one aircraft? Is it?
I guess what I will say is that I am not in the position to answer that question with the knowledge that I have at this time. So I would have to go back and review what was in place in order to respond to, I think, what is a very complex question at this point.
Chairman (interpretation): Mr. Curley.  Mr. Curley: Thank you.
I appreciate the Deputy’s assurance that they will look into it and find out. Will you be prepared to respond through your minister to indicate what the practice was at that time?
We will provide a response.
I just want to clarify the question and hopefully we will be able to respond within the next couple of weeks.
It will help to proceed from here on.
I have a direct question to respect to item on page H-14, but before I go there I just wanted to make a comment to the nurses that we have that work in the hospital and the medical centres throughout Nunavut.
Perhaps, the minister and deputy, if you let them know that we appreciate all the work that they do.
I know that we don’t pay enough recognition and I sometimes think that, compared to what we do this year, we also have to try and make some social arrangements.
In Rankin Inlet we have a pretty good event annually.
Christmas gatherings are very important, nurses play a very important role.
I think we need to do more in other places so we get to know these professionals people that they do work.
I have a comment on the Health Canada contribution to Nunavut government, to administer the following programs, Inuit and Registered Indians which we don’t have, Brighter Futures, Building Healthy Communities, Mental Health, along with all the other solvent abuse programs, and native alcohol and drug abuse programs.
If those funds are not spent for these purposes, what are they used for, because that’s a significant amount, in the amount of $11,240,000.
So the reason I’m saying that is because we don’t have any centres for alcohol treatment.
Why don’t we use some of that money and actually have a major centre somewhere, where people would be able to get treatment.
Is it possible to use that fund.
Mr. Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Curley.
I will refer the question to Mr. Whitworth.
I would like to recognize Mr. Curley for recognizing the nurses for their contributions, and I convey that recognition again to the nurses.
We use those health facilities when somebody’s gravely ill, and usually all the relatives go there if there are a lot of people that are usually end up there at one time.
I know that all members do recognize the nurses, but I will refer the question to Mr. Whitworth.
Mr. Chairman (interpretation): Mr. Blais is on your right; the one on your left is Mr. Whitworth.
Mr. Blais, you said the individual on your right, which one did you want to respond.
Hon. Levinia Brown (interpretation): I apologize, I made a mistake, Mr. Chairman, on my left, Mr. Whitworth.
As is the member noted, these are funding that we received from the federal government, and they are very specific guidelines around these funds, so we can’t just take the funds and spend wherever we want.
They are very specific for a very specific use.
If we don’t use the money in the year that it’s allocated, it’s turned back to the federal government.
Mr. Curley: Mr. Chairman, I really don’t see the national alcohol and drug abuse programs, I really think we don’t have enough of these kinds of services.
If we do have them in Nunavut, where are they carried out, how can the Inuit, I think is specifically allocated to them from Health Canada, that we have these services.
If we don’t have them now, how can we ask them to develop some kind of program to meet this part of their requirement?
Mr. Chairman Mr. Whitworth.
Specifically the alcohol and drug abuse programs, in this case, is a total of $317,000 for all of Nunavut, and a lot of that is for promotional type materials and things like that is what the funding comes in for.
Mr. Curley: Thank you, so what you’re telling me is that treatment and training is really not part of that treatment, it’s something else, and training is really promotional.
I don’t see anything that says promotional.
Why don’t we have more aggressive training or treatment facilities developed, because I know in Rankin Inlet, one of our local workers is working very hard to pass more support to that kind of thing when we’re sitting with the amount of dollars.
I think the discretion is up to the Deputy Minister or the Minister to allocate how much they want to allocate from that.
Are you talking by the federal rules?
Go ahead. Thank you.
Yes, we are, we are tied in by the contribution agreement by which the federal government and the Government of Nunavut have entered into.
It’s very specific as to what the funds are utilized for.
I think the members are great but it’s just that within this program, we can’t do that unless we identify a specific need, then we could possibly go after some funding from the Federal Government.
You tell on our behalf that there has to be a whole lot more dollars for that amount and we’re not pleased with the federal contribution of $300 thousand.
It can’t really do all that much for the whole of Nunavut.
If there is anything we can do, just send it over and we’ll see what we can do.
Chairman: $300 thousand could build a nice fence around our airstrip in Coral Harbour.
Would you like to respond Mr. Whitworth.
Mr. Whitworth: No thanks, Mr. Chairman.
I think he was just making a comment.
Chairman (interpretation): Are you finished.
Thank you, Madame Minister and your officials for coming back after supper.
I wanted to turn to page H-25 of your business plan, your priorities for 2005/06, it says complete relocation services from old to new health centres in Cambridge Bay and Rankin Inlet.
I’m wondering Madame Minister If you could give me an update on the status of the relocation services.
As you know the old health facility was evacuated last week and we have a serious situation in our community now.
If you could give me an update, I would appreciate it.
Could he please rephrase his question.
Chairman: Repeat the question.
The new Kitikmeot Regional Health Facility is going to include a section in there for a public health facility and a community health facility.
I’m looking for an update as to when that facility will be complete, when it will be outfitted and when it will actually be open for business, short term, long term in terms of staffing nurses, the compliment of doctors and the full range of services that the facility is envisioned to provide, in light of the evacuation from the old health facility last week.
It will open and it would be utilized 24/7, night and day.
It will open in July, this coming summer.
It will be utilized then.
Mr. Blais will respond.
We expect the community health center part or the out patient part to be open and operational in July, assuming our recruitment is on target and we also able to recruit doctors.
Subsequently, some time in the fall, we will begin to open the hospital side, the 24/7 component and again that would be very dependent on having physicians in place at that time.
So, the build-up in regards to all of the programs will take at least about 18 months because there are a number of programs that are new for the Kitikmeot Region.
So, 18-24 months before we can say that it’s fully operational in the context of for example, the Iqaluit hospital.
Mr. Peterson: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Madam Minister and Mr. Blais.
It seems like a very complicated process because you have to get the facility ready and outfitted, and at the same time, you have to recruit the nurses and doctors, and on top of that you have to find accommodations and housing for the doctors and nurses.
Then you have to work on a boarding home, which I believe they are working on.
I think I read a letter he sent in November 2004 about the new hostel, as we refer to it in Cambridge Bay.
I wonder if the minister or Mr. Blais could give me an update so my community knows just where you are in terms of arranging for housing for all of the nurses and doctors, and also where you are in terms of completing renovations or starting renovations to the new hostel so that they just know what’s happening for the next few months.
Mr. Blais will respond to that question.
If I could respond to part of that question and maybe pass some of it over to Mr. Whitworth, who basically handles the capital piece anyway.
I guess our expectation, again, as I stated earlier is that we are quite hopeful to be open in July and begin to open up.
Because we are phasing things in, there are ten units that have been built to accommodate the professional staffing compliment that we will be recruiting.
The nurses that are coming in from India and the Philippines have been told that they will be sharing accommodations.
So if there are three bedrooms, for example, in one of those units, then there will be three people, and that has not been necessarily the case in other communities.
So we feel, right now, that at least to get it started.
We have enough capacity to accommodate the initial influx of health professionals.
I think we will just become more complicated if we start to expand Cambridge Bay into an education centre, for example, which is quite feasible if we begin to look at expanding the nursing program into that community to train more nurses, and I think at that point in time, hopefully we will have another plan in place to be able to deal with that expansion.
But for the foreseeable future, I feel reasonably confident that what we have in place allows us to get started, and hopefully to build up to the opening of the 24-hour 7-day operation.
So hopefully that’s done.
For the second part, I would maybe look to Mr. Whitworth to answer in regards to the boarding home and the building of that.
In our 2004/05 capital budget, we had allocated $536,000 to start the renovation.
This current year, we have an additional $700,000, and if my memory serves me correct, to see what year is important, this year if they get the final supplies in to be able to finish doing their renovations to the facility so it can be open on time, but it’s currently...what I have here tells me the design is in progress as far as getting it laid out.
Mr. Peterson: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank you Mr. Blais and Mr. Whitworth.
Mr. Blais mentioned the accommodation for the nurses, but I think he said somewhere that there’s going to be four doctors in Cambridge Bay.
Where are you accommodating the doctors who will work at the facility?
I guess our hope is that when we get to that point that we will be able to find either private accommodations or work with housing to address that issue.
It’s going to be a challenge, there’s no question about that, but again, with all of the support and cooperation we have had between our departments, I believe that we will be able to address that particular challenge as well.
I don’t have a clear answer to that, but again, like every other challenge we have had since we started the boarding home accommodations, I think we have been able to find solutions to address those issues.
I’ve been trying to get answers to a lot of this as MLA.
For my years when I was mayor, I went back and forth to the previous Minister of Health and officials in the department, so I’m glad to see that it’s finally coming to a resolution.
I am in regular contact with the mayor of Cambridge Bay who even today sent me an e-mail asking if I had an update I could provide him on when the facility would be open, when you are hiring your staff and nurses, and whether they’re going to be housed, and also with doctors.
When you’ve got the Member of the Legislative Assembly and the mayor of the community asking questions.
We’re the ones who are supposed to know all this, or have this information at our finger tips so to speak.
It’s very hard for us to tell the people in Cambridge Bay what’s happening if we don’t have information.
They see a beautiful new facility going up.
I’ve had the good fortune to have a tour of that last month when the premier and Minister Aglukkaq went down.
It’s a very nice facility inside.
I think it’s going to do a lot of good things for the region, but again, people in Cambridge Bay and probably throughout the Kitikmeot Region would like to have a sound idea of what all is involved in opening the facility and what services it’s going to provide.
I think you’re going to have to do a lot of public relations and get out into communities and explain it all to the mayors and councils and health committees that are in the various communities and people in general, the public.
We’re building this facility, we’re opening it.
Here’s how it’s going to improve the health in our communities.
Some people might still want to go to Yellowknife, but if you explain to them that it would be better for them if they came to Cambridge Bay that will be helpful.
I’m kind of disappointed that you can’t give me more pertinent information.
That’s not the kind of way we like to operate as an organization, not have firm answers.
I can certainly appreciate some of your challenge in that regard.
I wanted to go to page H-14 on your main estimates and follow up on some questioning that my colleague from Rankin Inlet asked about that funding from Health Canada. There is reference to Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Program.
I’m wondering if the Minister could explain to me and the house how serious the problem of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is in Nunavut.
I don’t have the statistics in front of me but I do know that there is a pilot project going on.
It’s happening on behalf for Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.
It’s being held in Kugluktuk.
But perhaps one of my officials might have something else to add besides what I just said.
Mr. Blais, if I could direct him to answer.
I think the Minister is right.
We have established a pilot project in Kugluktuk in hopes that once that pilot project is complete that we could replicate that in other communities.
I think so far, we feel that it’s been a very successful initiative.
As it relates to the numbers of people affected by Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, there are no good statistics currently available in Nunavut following reason is that there needs to be an assessment put in place of all of the potential people that we believe might have that particular challenge.
This is something that our department has been working on to develop that tool.
There is a tool available that is basically generic across Canada.
My understanding from my staff is that this would not work well here because there are some signs that would be required and it’s being adjusted or tailored to hopefully be used in Nunavut.
Typically the average that I know is about 1 in 1000 across Canada, that’s the average of children that are believed to be affected by Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and FAE.
The question is I would anecdotally say that probably our averages are higher here than in other jurisdictions but I can’t validate that at this time until we have the proper assessment tools and are able to do the work that has to be done over the next two to three years.
Mr. Peterson: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank you, Mr. Blais.
It seems to be a medical condition that we don’t hear much about in Nunavut for some reason.
I know a couple of years ago in the Yukon it was a big issue with the government and the medical practitioners. I think there’s a movement of foot over there to raise awareness of the medical condition, and get it out into the open so they can address it.
I think it’s probably something we should do over here in Nunavut as well.
It’s hard to quantify the numbers, but we hear about some of the disturbing situations in some of elementary and high schools where there are a lot of kids that are having problems learning.
That’s also one sign of FAS.
So I am hoping that your department would take a serious look at that and continue to work in that regard.
I am sure the minister will commit to doing that with the resources that are obviously are being provided with resource from Health Canada, I will be looking forward to hearing the results from Kugluktuk.
On the same page, lower down, the Health Canada has a primary healthcare transition fund, and it seems to have decreased significantly from 2004/05 to 2005/06, it looks like a little bit more than $2 million.
Is there a reason why there’s a decrease?
Could the minister explain that, please?
Hon. Levinia Brown (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will let Mr. Whitworth respond to that.
Mr. Whitworth: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
The rationale or reasoning behind why you see a decrease is because it’s based on funding from the federal government.
I think this transition fund was for a two-year program or almost two or three years, but I think it purges a couple of different fiscal years, and I think this is the last year which it runs out and it doesn’t go to further complete the fiscal year from my understanding.
There’s so much paper in this job, you can fill up a room by piling it all up but you can’t spread it out.
Bear with me, Mr. Chairman, I thought transition was a priority in 2004/05.
I wonder if that’s the same thing under page H-24 of your business plan.
I am not sure if it’s the same thing, but if the minister can explain.
Chairman: Ms. Brown or Mr. Blais.
I apologize; somehow the pages on our business plan don’t match, so we are off every time we make reference to that.
Just to respond, no, I don’t believe these two are the same.
I will sort that out later, but I want to ask the minister and Mr. Blais; when they appeared at the hamlet council last summer, in addition to the references to 20,000 airline tickets and 60,000 bed nights, you also mentioned that you had an individual in your department who administers 480 contracts, is that correct?
You have one individual?
We have approximately, I guess, anywhere from 450 to 500 contracts and contribution agreements that our department administers, and up until now, hopefully that will change in the foreseeable future if this budget is approved, we only have one person that basically administers and coordinates all of that.
If this budget is approved are you envisioning hiring some people to administer the 500 contracts?
I will ask Mr. Whitworth to answer that.
What we envision to do is we need to hire a Contracts Manager at a higher level because the contracts in our department are getting more complex.
The person that we had was called a Contracts Administrator.
We need to have somebody with the skill sets to be able to negotiate much better.
Currently, it’s me, or Mr. Victor Tootoo, the Assistant Deputy Minister of Corporate Services.
We personally get involved in a lot of these contracts.
Mr. Peterson: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Whitworth.
It seems to me that that one individual is busy looking after 450 to 500 contracts.
That is quite an onerous responsibility and could cause some difficulties for your department.
Has that been the case in the past?
Are you satisfied that one individual was capable of handling 500 contracts?
Since this employee came on she has worked intimately with the Department of Justice.
We have set up a lot of template type contracts where you have Contribution Agreements where there is a lot of templates needs is vetted through Justice to make sure that we have all of the legal requirements.
We just attach appendices to it, depending on the services required.
Health has made her job a little easier but she has worked diligently in getting these up to a standard to make it much easier for her.
It is a lot of work for one person.
I can appreciate the work that she has to do.
I have a document in front of me here it is called the Procurement and Contracting Report of the Standing Committee that was tabled on Friday by the Minister of Community and Government Services.
I have been flipping through it.
It says, “It does not include LCA’s, Legislative Assembly contracts, or crown corporations.”
For some reason, it doesn’t include any health contracts either.
I don’t see any health contracts in there.
Is there an explanation for that?
I can’t really answer other than I know that we have a lot contracts for doctors to be specific.
I am not sure if that would have been reported in that Report.
If we were asked for any input into that document, we would have provided that to the department that requests it.
In most other departments; Public Works, Education, EIA, Human Resources, Petroleum Products Division, she has got them all here, mending the Department of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth.
For some strange reason it doesn’t anything for Health.
Perhaps that is an oversight by the Department of Community and Government Services.
I suggest that perhaps the minister could talk with her counterpart to sort this out.
This is information that was tabled to the Standing Committee.
This is information that the Standing Committee has asked the minister to table on an annual basis to us.
It is very important information.
It is public information so perhaps if the minister and her colleagues can sort that out.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you. Madame Minister, can you ask your officials.
I certainly can check into why the Department of Health was not included in there.
I will let Mr. Blais to respond further why it was like that.
I don’t have that answer.
I don’t really know.
Your time is up, Mr. Peterson.
I think looking through the Main Estimates, I don’t know if it falls under your department.
It’s emotional or touchy, it’s about suicide prevention.
Does it fall under your department to provide suicide prevention programs?
Mr. Chairman: Madame. Minister.
The topic that he’s saying is under Health and Social Services.
It is under our responsibility, but maybe Mr. Blais can elaborate more on that.
The Health and Social Services plays an important role in the whole issue of suicide prevention, but it also works with a number of other departments, we have what we call the Senior Officials Healthy Living Committee which is all the deputy ministers.
And all departments this year were asked to identify a specific initiatives, and I believe that document was tabled in this House not that long ago, specific initiatives that would have as a result to help reduce the frequency of suicide, as well improve and encourage you to cope or deal with those issues as well.
So there’s a big committee in place, and all of the departments have identified a number of initiatives.
I’m the co-chair of that Committee, along with Deputy Minister from EIA as well and we are currently in the process of doing Telehealth community consultation, we did Cape Dorset recently, the end of this month we’ll be having some dialogue with Pangnirtung as well.
So there is an extensive amount of activity underway with regards to suicide, not just from health but from all of the other departments as well.
Last is that, recently the Embrace Life Council, and was brought to life about a year and a bit ago.
Our department provided significant funding to help get that started and continue to fund it on a three year bases as well, to get this Council solidly in place so that it can also support many of the initiatives that are going on across Nunavut.
So there is a tremendous amount of work being done by our department and all of the other departments as well.
Mr. Chairman (interpretation): Thank you Mr. Blais.
So you’re saying that, you say that you’re co-chair of that Committee, are you looking at doing more work for them?
Suicide is high in our territory so are you planning more, doing more work for planning the suicide prevention on our territory?
Second question, I think in 2000, there were three skidoos traveling the territory and outside the territory.
I felt that didn’t we give them enough recognition for what they did, because they did a lot of traveling.
They used every effort they have and every mind, they have a lot of knowledge and navigation and all those and trying to prevent suicide in our territory.