SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - The new Public Health Act, which came into effect on Sept. 14, will ensure medical authorities are better prepared to deal with pandemics such as swine flu, or H1N1, according to Dr. Kami Kandola.

"It gives me more authority to delegate and deal with a pandemic, and get the information we need," said kandola, the NWT's chief public health officer.

Passed in the legislative assembly in 2007, the act replaces the old version of the Public Health Act and the Disease Registries Act. Implementation was delayed until recently so that additional regulations - such as the Disease Surveillance Regulations, Tourist Accommodation Health Regulations, and Food Establishment Safety Regulations - could be updated.

Changes to Disease Surveillance Regulations allow outbreaks of illness and pandemics like H1N1 to be monitored more thoroughly and dealt with more quickly than before.

"The difference is, these new regs deal with establishing a compulsion for medical practitioners to report illnesses that they might not otherwise report," said Bob Bromley, MLA for Weledeh.

"Right now, all people who are being hospitalized with flu are being tested for H1N1. A compulsion to report H1N1 is not necessarily necessary because it's already being so seriously monitored."

Lisa Cardinal, director of policy for the Department of Health and Social Services said the new legislation is simply a revamp of the previous act, which had become noticeably dated.

"The original act was extremely old, so the majority of the act was to make it consistent with other jurisdictions in Canada," said Cardinal. "Because the legislation was so old, we knew it would need a complete rewrite."

The Disease Surveillance Regulations specify how various conditions and diseases are reported to the chief medical health officer.

"It is something that the chief medical health officer had the ability to do previously, these regulations just clarify things and modernize language," said Cardinal.

"It allows the chief public health officer to manage things from an epidemiological perspective, so that we can track specific diseases, and it gives a better over(all) health status of the NWT."

Many amendments to the act consist of working alterations such as changing the title of chief medical health officer to chief public health officer.

Another notable addition is the allowance of medical practitioners, licences outside of the NWT, to gain a temporary permit to practise medicine in the territory during a public health emergency.

"That would just be in case of emergency, it's just a backup mechanism," said Cardinal.

"In an emergency, as long as they're licenced in another province or territory, the minister could give them a quick approval, on the recommendation of the chief public health officer. And then, after the fact, we would director the registrar to issue a licence."

Cardinal was not sure of the exact costs of establishing the new Public Health Act, saying the training required by some of the new regulations would be a minor factor.

"I don't think that there will be significant costs. There will be some training requirements for some food vendors, but there shouldn't be significant costs," she said.