Where's the 'positive' in health superboard? Weekend Yellowknifer - Friday, August 19, 2016
The newly minted NWT Health and Social Services Authority is compacting into one organization the six current regional health boards, including the Yellowknife and Stanton boards.
In a briefing last week, Glen Abernethy, the territory's minister for health and social services, assured attendees that the new board will not negatively affect patient care.
In the long run, the new superboard should mean streamlined services, he said.
And streamlined services are a good thing, right? "Streamlined" has such a positive ring to it, how could it not be a good thing? Especially with Abernethy's reassurance that this process isn't about centralizing services or removing frontline positions.
Or at least it's not necessarily about either of those things yet.
"Some jobs have been re-described," Abernethy said. "There may be some affected employees but not necessarily."
The fact is, streamlining for the sake of streamlining is absurd busy work.
If something is broken that this amalgamation is meant to address, the minister needs to explain how, exactly, this process will do that and how it will improve health and social care delivery in the North.
It is not enough to state there will be no negative impact. One would hope not, especially given the truck-size gaps that already exist in the treatment, for example, of mental health and addictions in the North.
So far, the government has not explained how services will improve under this new model. Instead, it has made vague promises of better co-ordination of health-care services, simplified spending and less paperwork.
Hurrah for less paperwork but what does this mean for those in need of urgent addictions or mental health treatment in the North?
To be sure, cost savings and efficiencies are important things. But without a sense for how those savings will help address existing failures or inadequacies in the current system, the creation of the health superboard will primarily excite bean-counters and process wonks while it does nothing for the people the system is meant to serve.
For the minister to say the superboard will not negatively impact health care is faint praise indeed.
The government has made a start with the introduction of a superboard but where is it going?
What is the concrete plan to demonstrably improve health care in the North by introducing a single monolithic health board?
A true community gathering placeDeh Cho Drum - Thursday, August 25, 2016
All were welcomed into the hamlet of Fort Providence on Aug. 17 to join in the community's celebration for the completion of its new arbour.
And celebrate they did.
There was an aura of reverence about the afternoon and a huge portion of the participants took part in the feeding of the fire ceremony.
Fort Providence, on the banks of the Mackenzie River, has long been without a proper gathering place.
Instead, when the community holds a celebration, gathering or event, it normally takes place at the recreation centre, school gymnasium or outdoors near the baseball field.
Now, as many speakers during the opening ceremony said, the community once again has this important centrepiece to revolve around.
And although Fort Providence's community events have not necessarily been dimmed by the lack of a central gathering place, the fact they now have one is true cause for celebration.
Perhaps the most telling symbol of the entire construction is the exquisite fire pit in the centre of the arbour. Just as the arbour will be the centre of the community, so too is the fire pit the very heart of the arbour, around which the Dene's most spiritual traditions take place.
Carved with the outline of Northern creatures, the fire pit's many sides are emblazoned with the names of the governing organizations that help Fort Providence thrive.
That can be taken as a symbol of how cohesive the community truly is.
In many communities within the Deh Cho, the arbour is perhaps the most important cultural structure present.
It is where seasonal celebrations take place during the summers.
It is a place of joy and laughter, a true place of gathering in every sense of the term.
In Fort Simpson, the arbour has been used for grand celebrations such as Liidlii Kue First Nation's spring gatherings, the Open Sky festival, high school graduation ceremonies and more.
In Fort Liard this past weekend, the arbour held Acho Dene Koe First Nation's handgames tournament, and was surrounded by booths for the fall gathering.
That gathering, now in its second year, is quickly becoming an annual event and one to look forward to each summer.
The most noticeable thing about that gathering is the ever-present laughter and smiles on the faces of those who attend.
While still a competition, the handgames tournament was as much about players enjoying themselves and having fun as it was about winning a prize.
When things like that happen, the true spirit of the North shines through.
Many benefits to seeing the worldInuvik Drum - Thursday, August 25, 2016
It's hardly news to anyone in the North that academics are not the only path to learning.
The benefits of being out on the land and bringing cultural activities into the school are touted and treated with equal weight in the education system, giving students the opportunity to learn about their surroundings and connect with the land, no matter what their background. This is something fairly unique and justifiably gets a lot of attention.
This week, we spoke with young women who had recently returned from a trip to Europe with Girl Guides Canada. This kind of travel, though it happens less often, is equally deserving of attention.
As connected as Inuvik is to the rest of the world through both global communications systems and the broad spectrum of ethnicities and backgrounds the community attracts, nothing replaces going and seeing the world for yourself.
As the Girl Guides can attest, it is one thing to know about the Eiffel Tower and see it in photos, and quite another to climb its stairs and eat in the restaurant located storeys above the city.
Perhaps more importantly, travelling to foreign countries helps people better understand themselves. You learn about what scares you and how to put that fear aside. You learn about making the best of temporary situations and fast friendships, and at the very least, you learn about all the food you've been missing all these years.
Now, travel is expensive, and that is certainly a prohibitive factor for the vast majority of Northern residents. But once again, the Girl Guides have proven that it can be done.
While not everyone can sell the trademarked cookies to make their travel dreams a reality, it's not like there is a dearth of fundraising opportunities in town.
Some may argue that dollars are scarce and that the cash would be better spent on improving things and hosting big events at home, and they are not entirely wrong. That being said, the community's brightest and most important resource are the people who call this place home, and giving them a chance to gain the perspective allowed by travel is a worthy investment.
While it is undoubtedly important to learn about the immediate surroundings and the cultures in which they are steeped, getting young people out to see the wider world is also imperative.
King's escape exposes security flaws at jailYellowknifer - Wednesday, August 24, 2016
Denecho King proved to the North Slave Correctional Centre earlier this month that where there is a will, there is a way.
He escaped from the facility on Aug. 10 by making his way to the roof and disappeared for three days before he was eventually flushed from a townhouse on Sissons Court.
In the bureaucratic terms, the Department of Justice explained in a news release that King's escape "revealed a pre-existing gap" in security and he "exploited" that gap.
Through his escape, not only did King expose shortcomings at the jail but also the gap between a particular recommendation from a scathing 2015 Auditor General of Canada report on the NWT corrections system and the department's response to the recommendation.
The auditor general expressed safety concerns over the fact that remanded inmates - those held in custody while awaiting trial - and convicted inmates were not being held separately. This is a concern for obvious reasons as some remanded prisoners - like Denecho King - may be accused of violent offences worthy of serious penitentiary time but won't be sent south until after they are convicted.
To have these prisoners, who are also a greater flight risk because of the lengthy sentences they are facing, milling around with other inmates convicted of far less serious charges puts both the guards and inmates at risk.
The department's response was that mixing inmates was "intentional and integral" because of space constraints. Since the audit, however, the department did update its inmate screening procedures to introduce a process that considered the severity of the crime, possible gang affiliations and flight risks to determine who should be housed with whom. It hasn't been made clear what King's flight risk designation was before he escaped.
This incident marked the first time in the North Slave Correctional Centre's 12-year history that somebody has successfully breached its security. While it's good to hear this has never happened at the facility before, the escape was a legitimately frightening time for many Yellowknifers. King has a lengthy violent criminal record and is facing a murder and attempted murder charge, and nobody knew how this tense situation would unfold.
Thanks to the RCMP, which got the word out by being open and communicative with the media, King was captured without incident. There was little doubt the RCMP would eventually find King, considering how his face was plastered across the front page of the newspaper and on thousands of social media feeds throughout the city.
The Department of Justice's report into King's escape will not be released to MLAs until September. Hopefully, the report is thorough and the department is transparent about the security flaws that led to King's escape.
Even if the findings are embarrassing for particular staff, bureaucrats or leadership, the public deserves to know what happened. It's important to be open and honest about this sort of thing because the public deserves to feel confident in its government.
The public deserves to feel confident that the department understands how these security lapses happened and the public deserves to feel confident that changes are being made so as to make sure an escape like King's never happens again.
Peace comes at a priceEditorial Comment by Darrell Greer
Kivalliq News - Wednesday, August 24, 2016
The opinions of a certain type of antagonist, who's never shy about expressing their thoughts in public, has always driven me a little batty.
On one side of the coin, they don't want any increase in the amount of money being spent on our military.
Yet, they express outrage anytime we side with Uncle Sam on an issue and despise seeing American content on our TV and radio airwaves, or just about anywhere else for that matter.
And they've been revelling in their glory during the past few months on how the best the United States can do for a pair of presidential candidates are Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
And, of course, their glee in taking any and every opportunity to jump on Trump, especially, knows no boundaries.
The problem is, however -- and this is why it was hard to get excited over a handful of troops conducting exercises in the Kivalliq this past week -- without Big Brother to the south, we are totally incapable of defending any of our interests.
Our military has sunk to the point where it couldn't protect a new shipment of fresh produce at the Northern store on government payday.
And that has nothing to do with the fine soldiers who would willing give their lives to defend our borders for a modest pay cheque.
Canadian soldiers remain among the very finest in the world.
But, when it comes to the equipment they're forced to use on land, sea or air, they are, literally and figuratively, bringing a knife to a gun fight in almost any conflict.
Despite our government's comical attempts at sternness with our big brother any time he implements a policy that rankles our feathers, the U.S.A. is our supreme protector and we're no more than paper allies when the chips are down.
John Robson hit the nail on the head when he titled a National Post column he wrote this past week as, "Canada seeks peace on the cheap."
Technology continues to move at lightning speed with the hardware of national defence, but that technology always costs a lot more than Canada is willing to pay.
It is downright laughable that this past year, in 2015, more than 32 years after then prime minister Pierre Trudeau first started the process, the first of the 28 replacements for our grossly outdated Sea King anti-submarine helicopters successfully arrived.
Robson was also absolutely correct with his assertion that we, as a nation, can no longer patrol our coasts, defend out skies, project force, or work effectively with our allies.
Militarily speaking, we are dead in the water.
Canada is still spending less than two per cent of its gross national product on its military, which has resulted in it being a two-bit player on the international stage, let alone be able to defend itself should the need ever arise.
You can poke fun at Trump all you want, and sneer at what you see as distasteful American policies, but, at the end of the day, without its military support, we're nothing more than a toothless beaver waiting to be skinned by much larger animals lurking in the international bushes and waters.
More than a half-century of peace has made us complacent, and, in today's world, that's a very, very dangerous way to be.
Health-care 'superboard' tonic for sick system?Northwest Territories/News North - Monday, August 22, 2016
To merge, or not to merge. That is the chronic question facing governments when it comes to entities such as school boards and health authorities.
There are arguments on both sides of the issue. Allowing individual communities and districts to reflect their communities and also have the autonomy to react to local issues with greater speed and efficiency sounds good in theory.
However, amalgamating those independent bodies into a "superboard" can also eliminate the silo syndrome and services - such as buying supplies - can go through one office, meaning simplified spending, less paperwork and ideally, more accountability and better co-ordination.
The territorial government has chosen to implement the latter model for the delivery of health-care services in the territory. The new authority came into existence Aug. 1. It amalgamates six regional health authorities - Beaufort Delta, Sahtu, Dehcho, Fort Smith, Yellowknife, and Stanton Territorial Hospital - into one "superboard."
Hay River - the second largest community in the NWT - isn't covered by the superboard, as employees of the Hay River Health and Social Services Authority aren't employees of the GNWT. The workers have their own collective agreement, different terms of employment and a different pension plan.
Health and Social Services Minister Glen Abernethy has said he hopes Hay River will eventually be brought into the new system.
Abernethy said improving health care is the ultimate goal of the transformation. The minister also took great pains to underscore the fact the new health authority isn't "about centralization," or "removing positions out of communities on the frontline."
He did admit to the media that there could be some job losses.
We certainly hope this new superboard will actually do what the minister has promised - improve the health-care system. The organizational chart of the board looks very complicated and we hope it doesn't get bogged down with regional infighting and a bloated bureaucracy.
The citizens of NWT deserve the best health care possible, as there are clearly some troubling problems with the current system.
In the days following Abernethy's superboard media briefing Aug. 11, news emerged of a 68-year-old Inuvialuit man from Aklavik who had died after suffering a massive stroke Aug. 3.
Hugh Papik's niece insists there was systemic racism - Aklavik Health Centre staff allegedly insisted he was drunk - and it took hours to get the still conscious man medevaced to a hospital in Inuvik, and then transferred to Stanton Territorial Hospital in Yellowknife. By then it was too late. He was brain dead. The family later made the agonizing decision to remove him from life support.
What has to be questioned in this case is not just the allegations of racism but the initial response from the government.
"The CEO of the NWT Health and Social Services Authority has reviewed the matter and she is confident that appropriate clinical practices were followed," Damien Healy, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Services, stated to local media.
"There is no further follow-up review being considered."
Then on Aug. 16, as you'll read in this edition of News/North, the government did a flip-flop when Abernethy announced there will be an outside investigation after all.
While we appreciate the minister stepping and taking action on this file, it is clear he and his government have a lot of work ahead of them to instill a sense of confidence in the people of the NWT about their health-care system.
Establish permanent place for military in NunavutNunavut/News North - Monday, August 22, 2016
Nunavut was given a voice when the largest defence policy review in 20 years was gathering input from ordinary Canadians last week.
Nunavut Sen. Dennis Patterson hosted a round table discussion, with comments received to be added to a formal submission.
We're hoping the perspective from the top of Canada doesn't get lost among the more than 20,200 submissions to the online consultation portal and more than 4,700 contributions to the virtual discussion forum.
It is vital that the Department of National Defence understands that there is a serious shortfall in Canada's military presence in the Arctic. Sure, more Arctic patrol ships and icebreakers are on the way. They are currently under construction in shipyards.
However, other than annual military exercises, such as Operation Nunalivut, Canada isn't flexing its sovereignty muscles like other circumpolar nations.
Oh say, can you see, the other sea, the third sea. The Arctic Ocean is increasingly showing up on the radar of many countries around the world, including China, Japan and Korea.
The proverbial canary in the coal mine launches this month when the Crystal Serenity, a 820-foot, 68,000-tonne, 13-deck luxury cruise ship with approximately 1,625 souls aboard, departs from Alaska for a planned transit of the Northwest Passage. It will be accompanied by an icebreaker, the British Royal Research Ship Sir Ernest Shackleton, in water that is not clearly sovereign to Canada.
In fact, Parliament in 2009 renamed the waters "Canadian Northwest Passage" in reaction to claims from the international community that the Northwest Passage is actually international waters.
Canada has to use it or lose it. Other than Canadian Coast Guard ships and Nunavut fishing boats, numerous vessels are sailing the Northwest Passage since a record 30 completed the transit in 2012.
But it is not just the water and coastal areas of Nunavut where Canada much show its sovereignty. The Canadian Rangers, primarily made up of Inuit, prove themselves invaluable during military exercises. While there is a training station for them in Resolute, their presence is largely symbolic until they are pressed into service. These are not full-time positions.
One has only to consider the impact of a science project, the Canadian High Arctic Research Station, currently is under construction in Cambridge Bay, to realize the hugely significant economic benefit a permanent military installation would have on the North.
The review is focusing on security, the role of the Armed Forces in addressing threats, and the resources required to respond.
A modern, permanent facility in Nunavut would provide a home for the Armed Forces in the Arctic, give the Canadian Rangers a place to call their own, and enhance the country's search-and-rescue capabilities.
Discussions, plans and allocation of funding takes years. Because the wheels of bureaucracy turn slow, it is vital that a permanent military presence in the Arctic be a top considerations within the defence-policy review.
This vast land deserves to be protected.
