Home Care Program
Privatization--Study Release
Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of the Opposition): Madam Speaker, my question is to the First Minister (Mr. Filmon).
Madam Speaker, day after day we have been asking this Premier, who has approved the plans to privatize home care, to give us any studies, any evidence, of why the best home care program in North America would be privatized under the ideology of his government. The Premier has repeatedly refused to answer any questions or table any reports in this Legislature dealing with this very, very important health care service.
I asked yesterday and my colleague asked the week before to table the Connie Curran study on home care, a report paid for by the people of this province, as a courtesy to the people of this province.
I would like to ask the Premier whether he could table Connie Curran’s report today. He approved it as head of the cabinet of government. I would like to ask the Premier whether he has any study to validate his position to privatize home care, and would he agree today to stop the privatization and keep home care services in Manitoba as built by Manitobans in this province?
Hon. Vic Toews (Minister of Labour): Madam Speaker, that gives me the opportunity to advise the House of the status of the matter relating to the strike regarding the home care services.
I would indicate that the government’s position in this matter has been that we had offered a 12-month status quo agreement and we were prepared in an initiative to deal with contracting out of services for 25 percent of Winnipeg. There would be in fact no contracting out of services outside of the city of Winnipeg. The issue is not an issue of privatization, Madam Speaker. This is an issue of contracting out for the services. We in fact have indicated to the union that we are prepared to hear any bids from them in respect of the provision of these services. If the services are provided by the union, we have no objection to that.
Privatization
Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of the Opposition): Madam Speaker, I suppose the minister is continuing on under the leadership of the Premier not to table the Connie Curran report, a report paid for by the taxpayers of this province, because they have no study to validate their position.
Now, given that the buck presumably stops at the Premier’s desk--and he is the one who has initiated this privatization, he is the one who is in charge of policy of the government--yesterday I asked the Premier whether in fact the government had listened to Mr. David Martin, who is president of the Manitoba League of Persons with Disabilities. The Minister of Health (Mr. McCrae) in Hansard yesterday went on to say that Mr. Martin did not know the details of their decision; he commented without knowing any of the details of what was being put forward. “They did not know, . . . .”
Madam Speaker, I want to table a letter from the Manitoba League of Persons with Disabilities that clearly contradicts the minister that they do know, that they are blaming the government of Manitoba, the Filmon government, for creating the turmoil and trauma on behalf of home care privatization, and they are calling on the government to stop privatization.
I would ask the Premier today, in light of the answer we received from the Minister of Health yesterday, would he please stand up and stop the privatization of home care services as requested by the Manitoba League of Persons with Disabilities?
Hon. Gary Filmon (Premier): Madam Speaker, I want to point out to the Leader of the Opposition that in seven other provinces home care delivery is done in a variety of different manners that offers choice and competition within the system to people who require the service, seven other provinces. In addition to that, our province instituted a pilot project with the Seven Oaks Hospital that was reported on extensively publicly in which the satisfaction rate for those who receive the services was extremely high, and in the process of discussion of that it was stated publicly that the government would look at further utilization of choice and competition within the system to ensure that we had the flexibility to offer the services that the people of Manitoba depend upon and require through home care.
Madam Speaker, with respect to different proposals that this government has been prepared to consider and the flexibility that this government has been prepared to consider in discussion with the Manitoba Government Employees’ Union, just yesterday in response to a request by the union negotiators for consideration of a moratorium to be placed on this decision, we responded to their unconditional request just for a moratorium that we would consider and indeed agree to a moratorium of 60 days so that further discussions could take place, so that the conciliator could work and so that the Government Employees’ Union themselves could consider whether or not they wish to put in their own proposal with respect to the delivery of home care on a competitive basis. That was rejected by the union.
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Mr. Doer: Madam Speaker, I remember the government putting a moratorium on all the cuts in health care and the privatization of health care after the by-elections in '93 right until after the election, and look what happened after that. Look at the seniors dealing with their Pharmacare, another moratorium placed by this government before the election versus after the election, so I would recommend that the moratorium be basically, we have a policy in this province that is a made-in-Manitoba policy to keep privatization away from home care.
Madam Speaker, Manitoba was the first province to establish home care in North America, and we were one out of 10 when we started home care in the early ’70s. We started it as a nonprofit service. It has been evaluated as the best home care service in North America. The Manitoba way is not to have profit in home care. I would ask the Premier to stop the privatization and go back to the made-in-Manitoba way of stopping privatization of home care.
Mr. Filmon: Madam Speaker, I hesitate to correct the Leader of the Opposition, but home care began in this province as it was delivered by the VON and developed by the VON in the ’60s, almost a decade before government adopted the elements of home care and institutionalized it with a bureaucracy. The concept of home care and the development of home care happened in the private sector by the VON, and I would wish him to correct the record.
Home Care Program
Privatization
Mr. Dave Chomiak (Kildonan): Madam Speaker, the Premier ought to realize that the reason the government introduced home care as a government nonprofit public plan in the 1970s was because it was not working in the private sector and that is why it was brought in as a public plan in the first place.
Madam Speaker, the most important relationship in health care is that between the caregiver and the patient. Many caregivers in this province have spent years with the patient. Why is this government jeopardizing those relationships, those caregiving patterns that have grown up over the years by their hell-bent desire to privatize a system that is already working in this province?
Hon. James McCrae (Minister of Health): Madam Speaker, the honourable member would do well to choose his words carefully when he wants to make disparaging comments about organizations like the Victorian Order of Nurses, which has served our province so well for so long.
The honourable member has been told and others have been told many times of the commitment of this government not only to the health system in general, for which funding has increased under our government very significantly over the funding of the previous government in Manitoba, but he has also been reminded that spending in home care in the city of Winnipeg and throughout Manitoba has increased very significantly, in Winnipeg to the tune of 113 percent over the last eight years. In those eight years, growth in the program and demand on the program has grown significantly and the government has kept pace with that with annual funding increases. Indeed, with changes in the future to our hospital system and the fact that our population continues to age, there will be very, very significant pressure in the future and we need to have a variety of service deliveries available to us so we can have the flexibility we need.
Mr. Chomiak: Madam Speaker, our home care workers are amongst the lowest paid in the country, yet we have the best system.
My question for the Minister of Health is, will the government not listen to the people who provide the care, the people who receive the care, the people, associations that have said, this is the government’s fault for putting us in the situation we are in? Not play games about 60-day moratoriums and then let out tenders. Stop this privatization plan today and go back to the system we had in the first place.
Madam Speaker: The question has been put.
Mr. McCrae: Madam Speaker, the honourable member says he wants us to go back to the system we had in the first place. I have just been handed a report, which I am advised was commissioned by the previous New Democratic Party government, and these honourable members, they put great stock in reports. Well, this one recommends user fees. This is something that the New Democrats commissioned.
Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.
Madam Speaker: Order, please. The honourable Minister of Health, to complete his response.
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Mr. McCrae: Madam Speaker, this NDP-commissioned report also would put limits on the hours of service to people. This is the kind of report that honourable members commissioned, and then they are critical if you go along with reports. You are critical if you disagree with reports or people who make them; they are critical if you agree.
For example, let us look at the design teams, which is composed of all kinds of--
An Honourable Member: Barb Biggar.
Mr. McCrae: The honourable members do not want to hear this part of the answer.
Mr. Chomiak: Madam Speaker, why is this government which was so convinced that their private sector friends can deliver home care when in fact we are advised that the home care companies, some of them, are refusing to send workers today into the inner core of Winnipeg because they are afraid of what conditions exist there, why are they so hell-bent on working with their private sector friends when they will not even send workers into the core of Winnipeg?
Madam Speaker: The question has been put.
Mr. McCrae: I would like the honourable member to tell us about the kinds of conditions he is talking about so that we can understand that and address the issue.
Madam Speaker, the same report to which I referred a few minutes ago was very critical of the Home Care program, the program that the honourable member for Kildonan simply says, let us just go back to the way we were. If we simply just go back in everything we do in health care--it is simply, go back to the way it was--every Health minister across this country will tell you that if that advice were followed, in very short order our health system would come crumbling down around us. That is not a legacy I or my colleagues would like to leave to future generations.
If honourable members want that, so be it, but they are not going to have that opportunity. More responsible people will prevail, and there will be a health system in the future.
Home Care Program
Privatization
Mr. Steve Ashton (Thompson): Madam Speaker, on a daily basis we are seeing the government’s true agenda on home care. It was never something promised in the election. They have no objective studies to support privatization. Most importantly, they have no support from the users--disabled, those with Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis--for the moves that they are making right now.
What I would like to ask the Minister of Health is what his real agenda is. I would particularly like to ask the Minister of Health, when he first raised the issue of private home care with some of the private care operators, including, in particular, that of We Care, which is operated by a very close personal friend of his from Brandon, when did he first raise the issue of privatization of our home care system with those private operators?
Hon. James McCrae (Minister of Health): Madam Speaker, the honourable member--I will not dignify some of the comments he made in his preamble by responding to them. They are simply scurrilous and inappropriate.
I recall when Seven Oaks Hospital contracted with a private company by the name of We Care back in 1994. Honourable members have suggested that there is no mandate for any change in our health system, which I certainly disagree with.
I say to the honourable member that he should ask his seatmate, the honourable member for Kildonan, who attended at Seven Oaks Hospital the day the report of that project was made public, the honourable member for Kildonan very grudgingly, but nonetheless did so, supported the results. He supported the very, very positive outcome that was reported at that time. This was February 3, 1995, that it was reported, and may I suggest to honourable members that they--
Madam Speaker: Order.
Mr. McCrae: I am sorry, Madam Speaker.
Mr. Ashton: Madam Speaker, I would appreciate it if the minister could dignify this House by answering the question.
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Madam Speaker: Order, please. The honourable member for Thompson was recognized for a supplementary question, which requires no preamble or no postamble to the minister’s response.
Mr. Ashton: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I will ask the minister then, whether he in fact, as early as 1989, was making public statements with Bev McMaster, the head of We Care based in Brandon, indicating support for the privatization of home care. Will he come clean and put his own personal agenda on the record? When did he first raise the issue of privatization?
Mr. McCrae: Madam Speaker, I remind the honourable member that a good portion of our Home Care program in the city of Winnipeg is already privatized through the auspices of the Victorian Order of Nurses, a private nonprofit organization. [interjection]
Well, if the honourable member wants to talk about profit and nonprofit, let him do that. That is fine with me, but do not imply that the Victorian Order of Nurses is not a private organization because that is exactly what it is.
The honourable members, on the one hand, suggest, oh, this is all new, and on the other hand now today through the honourable member for Thompson, want to draw some long history of this. Well, I can certainly go back to before the election back in 1995 when the report from the Seven Oaks project came out, and there was plenty of notice. I believe it was on page A1--I think that is the front page of the Winnipeg Free Press--which talks about, watch for more of this sort of thing to come, and in increments. That is what we are seeing now.
Mr. Ashton: Madam Speaker, will the Minister of Health--he will not answer the first two questions--confirm, and this is based on a statement which I will table in the House made by a former senior employee with We Care who is here at the Legislature today, that at a gala for We Care staff and management held at the Victoria Inn in Brandon in June 1989, Bev McMaster, with Jim McCrae at her side, said that we--that is We Care--were in the best position because home care would be privatized in the future?
Will the minister admit to the fact that he has a personal agenda for the privatization of home care?
Mr. McCrae: Madam Speaker, the honourable member can quote what someone else says. I cannot be responsible for what somebody else had to say. I do not mind what people say. I sit here every day and hear a variety of statements made by honourable members from all sides of the House, and, ultimately, they will be responsible for their own statements.
Madam Speaker, what I do understand is that there is a dynamic and growing requirement for home care services, there are people who are willing and able to provide home care services and that they will be offered an opportunity, along with the Manitoba Government Employees Union, along with the Victorian Order of Nurses.
I remind honourable members that it was not so long ago there was a tender call for home intravenous therapy services, for example, at St. Boniface General Hospital and everybody lined up and put their tenders in. Honourable members will recall, the Victorian Order of Nurses was the successful bidder.
Point of Order
Mr. Ashton: On a point of order, Madam Speaker, Beauchesne Citation 417 is very clear that answers to questions should be as brief as possible, deal with the matter raised and should not provoke debate.
I asked whether the minister was there in 1989. He made no reference whatsoever to his connection with We Care in his answer to the question. I would like to ask you to call him to order and ask him to finally answer some of the serious questions we are raising about home care in this House.
Madam Speaker: Order, please. The honourable member for Thompson indeed does have a point of order. Beauchesne Citation 417 states that answers to questions should indeed reply to the question asked; however, I must add that I believe the minister was within the time limit allowed.
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Home Care Program
Privatization--Impact on Women
Ms. Diane McGifford (Osborne): Madam Speaker, last week, when I pointed out to the Minister of Health that 98 percent of home care workers scheduled to be laid off in June are women and therefore privatization targets a vulnerable and recognizable group, he said that he had high regard for the contribution home care workers made to their fellow citizens. Yet yesterday in this Legislature, the minister showed no respect as he railed against home care workers.
I want to ask the minister today to stand by his claims of regard, to support the women of Manitoba who are providing the best home care in North America, and to immediately cancel his implicitly sexist plan to privatize home care.
Hon. James McCrae (Minister of Health): Madam Speaker, I hope the honourable member will allow me to make this very clear. At no point have I railed against home care workers and at no point will I ever do it. If occasionally I become agitated, it is more likely to be at honourable members opposite and some of their sidekicks at the head of the unions in this province, but I have--[interjection] If the honourable member wants to go back and review the records, he will see that when I was Labour critic sitting over on that side of the House, every time I spoke it was on behalf of workers and it was not on behalf of union bosses and, of course, not on behalf of honourable members opposite with whom they have regular councils.
Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.
Madam Speaker: Order, please. I would remind all honourable members that every single member in this Chamber deserves the same equal amount of respect, and I would ask that when people are answering questions the members respect that that individual member has the floor. I would ask for the same return courtesy when a member is responding to a question.
Ms. McGifford: Madam Speaker, it comes as no surprise to me that the minister does not know what he was doing--
Madam Speaker: Order, please. The honourable member for Osborne was recognized for a supplementary question which requires no preamble.
Ms. McGifford: Will the minister listen to clients, many of whom are elderly women who have opened their homes, hearts and bodies to their workers and who support their workers, who put their faith in home care and not We Care, and in the wisdom of Evelyn Shapiro and not Connie Curran?
Mr. McCrae: Madam Speaker, when the New Democrats commissioned this Price Waterhouse study back--
An Honourable Member: Is there an answer to this question, ever?
Madam Speaker: Order, please.
Mr. McCrae: Madam Speaker, in studies commissioned by the previous government or any work done by the present government that has been done, it has been done because there is a need expressed very often by our clients and made very clear to us that there are indeed issues to be resolved in the Home Care program. The New Democrats recognized it back in ’86, ’87; we recognize it now.
The complaints that come forward, and they come up all the time, have to do with the efficiency of the program, the responsiveness of the program. It has to do with focusing on the patient for our efforts instead of focusing only on the government or on the care provider, but let us put some focus on the client. Is there anything in the system that brings about innovation? Is there anything there to trigger or give incentive for innovation? Those are issues that our clients are very concerned about and so are we, and that is the focus of what we are trying to do, and we are very mindful of the workforce involved here.
The honourable members forget, too, that in addition to the workforce, we have clients as well.
Regional Health Boards
Appointment of Women
Ms. Diane McGifford (Osborne): I want to ask the minister again, as I asked him yesterday, to appoint some women to his regional boards and so protect the health needs of Manitoba women and so ensure that implicit sexism does not continue tainting Manitoba’s health care policies and practices.
Hon. James McCrae (Minister of Health): Madam Speaker, I can reply again for the honourable member that in partnership with the Manitoba Cancer Treatment & Research Foundation, we have established two of the three breast screening centres in Manitoba. I am told that we have already made moves that have saved the lives of our fellow citizens in Manitoba who are women. That is something we should all support and be proud of, and I am mindful also of the points raised by the honourable member yesterday and again today.
Home Care Program
Labour Dispute
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): Madam Speaker, my question is for the Premier.
The Liberal Party believes that the client is far too often left out in this whole debate. The Minister of Health (Mr. McCrae) constantly talks about the need and the importance of the client. We have seen the client during the emergency services at our hospitals being left out there. We once again are seeing our clients being left and pushed to the side by this government. The Minister of Health has gone out of his way to blame the health care professionals once again for the clients--passing it on to the clients.
My question to the Premier: Is the Premier today prepared to accept the responsibility of this strike, and what is the Premier prepared to do to put an end to this strike?
Hon. Gary Filmon (Premier): Madam Speaker, I point out to the member for Inkster that in any dispute there are two sides involved and engaged in an attempt to settle a dispute, and the leadership of the union has determined that it is in its best interest to ask its members to withdraw services from those in need.
An Honourable Member: Whom do you think decided?
Mr. Filmon: The union leadership decided--
An Honourable Member: The workers voted. It is called democracy, something you would not know very much about.
An Honourable Member: Before there was anything on the table.
Mr. Filmon: --before there was anything on the table, before any negotiations took place.
In anticipation of the strike, we have in the last couple of days at the request of the union, firstly, appointed a conciliator. We are happy to do that in an effort to try and resolve it without having strike action. Secondly, in response to the union’s request to create a moratorium or a delay on the decision, we offered a 60-day delay. The union rejected that.
I think at every opportunity this government has shown that it wants to do what is reasonable in order to avoid that work stoppage, but ultimately the decisions that will affect the lives of, regrettably, those who need the services, whom we feel very badly about, those decisions are being made by union leadership, I guess, against the best interests of those who are receiving and depend upon the services.
Privatization
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): Madam Speaker, I am wondering if the Premier can indicate and at least acknowledge what the clients know, and that is that the privatization of home care services will mean a decrease in the quality of services being delivered to home care services. This is what the Minister of Health is taking--
Madam Speaker: Order, please. The question has been put.
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Hon. James McCrae (Minister of Health): Absolutely not, Madam Speaker. The honourable member could not be more wrong. If he looks across this country he will see that in most jurisdictions there is a mix of service delivery in the various places. You know, only Manitoba and Quebec do not have user fees.
The honourable member says he supports home care, which we on this side certainly do. Does he not have a view of the health care system that is in a context of the world we are living in, or is it in some other place where reality is but a figment of his imagination?
Only recently--and I quote from the Halifax Mail-Star where it says home health care could be privatized. Health Minister Ron Stewart is about to privatize home care. By year’s end, those who make all those meals, change bandages and administer morphine in homes across the province will have to bid for the job. We are designing a whole new system, the minister said.
Madam Speaker, we are talking about 25 percent of competition in the city of Winnipeg, and the honourable member is in some other world somewhere.
Privatization--Study Release
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): Madam Speaker, the world I am in is the province of Manitoba.
My question to the Minister of Health: Can the Minister of Health table any document that would clearly demonstrate the privatization of home care services is not going to degrade or bring down the quality of home care services that is currently being delivered today by a system that is working?
Hon. James McCrae (Minister of Health): The honourable member wants something--here is a Price Waterhouse report that was commissioned by New Democrats in 1986-87 dealing with the--[interjection]
Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.
Madam Speaker: Order, please.
Point of Order
Mr. Lamoureux: Madam Speaker, on a point of order. In Beauchesne’s, it makes reference to the fact that we put forward the questions. We appreciate a straightforward answer.
The question was would he table the information that the minister might have. If he feels that the information that he continuously quotes from is the only information he has, then table that information.
What we want and the workers want is information.
Madam Speaker: Order, please. I would remind the honourable member for Inkster, this is not a time for debate, and it is clearly not a time to dispute what other members are putting on the record.
The honourable minister had barely started his comments, so unfortunately I am not able to rule that there is a point of order due to the fact that I did not even hear a portion of his response before the honourable member for Inkster was on his feet to raise a point of order. The Speaker stood to maintain order and decorum in the Chamber because there was definitely noise erupting from both sides of the Chamber.
The honourable Minister of Health, to complete his response.
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Mr. McCrae: Madam Speaker, my memory is not clear on whether the honourable member for Inkster was also at Seven Oaks Hospital the day the report that was the result of that project was released to the public. The report speaks in very positive terms of the patient outcomes and speaks in very positive terms of the patients’ point of view with respect to the services that were delivered.
As I was trying to say--the honourable member puts his question in the context of a privatized system--the report that the NDP commissioned, the Price Waterhouse report, was all about a privatized system. That is the system where, without tender, the Victorian Order of Nurses, a private nonprofit agency, had control of a lot of the Home Care program here in the city of Winnipeg.
So, you know, there has been plenty of study over the years. It is time to do something for the clients of home care.
Home Care Program
Labour Dispute
Mr. Gord Mackintosh (St. Johns): My question is for the Minister of Health.
With the public argument between the First Minister (Mr. Filmon) who says that profit care will save $10 million over three years and the Minister of Health, on the other hand, who says, no savings, while home care clients are now displaced or without service, would the minister tell us whether the likely financial costs of the minister’s strike will be factored into a proper costing of the profit care plan when he gets around to it?
Hon. James McCrae (Minister of Health): Madam Speaker, this is not the minister’s strike, believe me. My colleague the Minister of Labour (Mr. Toews) and myself and others have been very, very active in trying to forestall this sort of activity on the part of the union leadership. We had a strike vote taken and a decision made on a deadline even before discussions began. The honourable member knows all that, and yet he has the gall and the nerve to stand on his feet to put a question like that. Shame on the honourable member.
Mr. Mackintosh: A supplementary: Would the minister admit that this strike, and I perhaps correct myself, that this government brought on could cost about one-half million dollars a day, more than twice as much as home care costs yesterday? Is that the cost of this minister’s stubbornness?
Mr. McCrae: Madam Speaker, I know a couple of things: We are not going to be paying people not to work, No. 1, and No. 2, we are going to continue to press the union, if they insist on having a strike, to recognize that there are certain people in these circumstances whose needs are absolutely needing to be met on an essential basis.
I mentioned those groups yesterday in the House and elsewhere, and I cannot understand an opposition party that would not urge a union with which it has this organic fusion, I do not understand why they would not urge them to recognize people with Alzheimer’s disease, people with Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, severe cases of arthritis and others who need home care services. Why will honourable members not stand up for those people? Why, Madam Speaker?
Revenues
Government Estimate
Mr. Tim Sale (Crescentwood): Madam Speaker, in the Third Quarter Report for 1995-96, the Finance minister suggests that revenues for 1995-96 net of the $145 million one-time lottery transfer will exceed $5.480 billion.
I would like to ask the minister if he believes that these revenue predictions remain reasonable for the year just past.
Hon. Eric Stefanson (Minister of Finance): Madam Speaker, the short answer is yes.
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Mr. Sale: I thank the minister for that answer. Could the minister then explain why the revenue estimate for 1995-96, after deducting the $145-million lottery transfer, after deducting the net cut in federal transfers, is still $50 million greater than he now projects for this year, 1996-97? Last year’s revenues are bigger. How come?
Mr. Stefanson: Madam Speaker, whenever it has come to numbers in the past, I have had difficulty with the accuracy of information that this member brings to the House. He obviously may be misreading the two reports, but I can tell him today that if he looks at our 1996-97 budget, our own source revenues are up by approximately 3.6 percent in terms of our taxation revenues and our direct revenues, Madam Speaker. As he mentioned, our transfers from Ottawa are down by in excess of a hundred million dollars, and our overall lottery transfers are down.
Mr. Sale: Madam Speaker, will the minister acknowledge that in my first question I took those matters into account, and does he still wish to defend his ridiculously low 1996-97 revenue Estimates, which are now seen to be $50 million less than he expected for the past year, and that he has deliberately underestimated revenue for this year as part of the camouflage for the cuts to those who receive home care, Pharmacare, eye care, hospital care? This is just camouflage. Will he finally acknowledge his revenue Estimates are nonsense?
Mr. Stefanson: Once again, the member for Crescentwood is absolutely wrong, and I will provide him with all of the detailed information in terms of the 1996-97 revenue Estimates. In terms of our own source taxation revenues, they are up by 3.6 percent. Obviously, as has happened with him on many occasions, the comparison he is doing is inaccurate. He is probably comparing apples to oranges.
Madam Speaker, in terms of our own source revenues, taxation is up 3.6 percent. In terms of retail sales tax revenue, it is up 6.3 percent. Where our revenues are down are in the areas of transfers from Ottawa--they are down by in excess of $100 million--and in terms of combined transfers from lotteries, they are also down, but our own source revenues are up and they are up reasonably.
Mental Health Care
Housing
Ms. Marianne Cerilli (Radisson): Madam Speaker, I have written the government recently about the move to place mental health patients in Manitoba Housing Authority vacant bachelor suites and elderly persons housing blocks, and I am concerned that these clients are not going to have the necessary home care support and that the Manitoba Housing Authority staff are not properly trained to deal with the increasing demands.
I want to ask the Minister of Health, how many outpatients have been placed at 185 Smith Street or other elderly persons apartment blocks, and what numbers of trained support staff have been also placed there to make sure that these people are integrated safely into the community?
Hon. James McCrae (Minister of Health): Madam Speaker, I certainly share the honourable member’s concerns. The details of her question we can address as we get into the process of review of my department’s Estimates, which comes up pretty shortly.
Madam Speaker: The honourable member for Radisson, for one very short question.
Ms. Cerilli: I want to ask the Minister of Health how his department has responded to a letter from the Winnipeg regional director for Housing that says, my staff have neither required time nor appropriate training to adequately address the needs of this segment of the tenant-client base. Not only does it exhaust our human resources, it can also cause a wave of distress to the general building population. Has the Department of Health--
Madam Speaker: Order, please. The question has been put.
Mr. McCrae: Madam Speaker, I will obtain the response and provide it to the honourable member.
Madam Speaker: Time for Oral Questions has expired.