Thank you very much, Mr. Godin.
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Chair, committee members. Thank you for agreeing to meet with us this evening so that we can tell you a little about the Conseil communauté en santé and about certain recent initiatives taken in Manitoba with the support of the Société Santé en français, which is located in Ottawa, and Health Canada.
In 2004, the Conseil communauté en santé was recognized by the provincial government as the official voice of the Francophone community on health and social services. The mandate of the Conseil communauté en santé, or CCS, is to promote access to quality French-language services in the areas of health and social services; to develop and promote the Franco-Manitoban community's vision of access to French-language services to the government bodies and organizations concerned; to propose, introduce and implement or support various strategies for the Franco-Manitoban community's vision for access to French-language health and social services to be implemented by the government bodies and organizations concerned.
Our board of directors consists of people who are partners, of various people responsible for health, whether it be health professionals, representatives of health institutions, representatives of the regional health authorities or people from the community. In other words, like Société Santé en français, the CCS considers itself a partner of the provincial government, the regional health authorities and social service agencies for the purpose of advancing the cause of health in French.
It is this cooperative approach that has made possible, here at home, six actual projects that are improving access, on a sustainable basis, to quality services in French for our Franco-Manitoban population. With funding from the Primary Health Care Transition Fund, these projects are real proof that, together, we are improving access to quality French-language services in the areas of health and social services. Let me say a few words on each of those projects to illustrate my remarks.
The first project is called Cancer and cancer prevention: toward services for Francophones, because there were few French-language services in this area. The purpose of this project is to put in place cancer prevention and treatment services and programs for the urban and rural Francophone population.
The second project is the project for primary health centres in Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes, Saint-Claude and Montcalm, which are three rural Manitoban communities, and its purpose is to introduce a health centre that will deliver bilingual health services for the residents of Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes and surrounding areas. Construction of the centre is part of a broader project designed to improve access to health care services for Francophones in the region, which includes establishing satellite centres in the communities of Saint-Claude and Saint-Jean-Baptiste, as well as the introduction of a mobile multidisciplinary team that will serve the three locations.
The third project, which is the Francophone component of the provincial Health Links/Info Santé Call Centre, is one of the promising projects. The introduction of the Francophone component of a telephone health information service provides access to a nurse practitioner and health information 24 hours a day.
The purpose of the fourth project, the coordination of health services in Saint-Laurent, is to put in place a coordination model for improving access to primary health services for the Francophone Métis of Saint-Laurent. Saint-Laurent is the largest Francophone Métis community in Manitoba which is just next door to western Canada. This work has been assigned to a bilingual nurse who is part of a team already providing services.
The fifth project that I would like to mention is planning and development of a primary health services model for the Saint-Boniface region. The purpose of the project is essentially to create a health and social services delivery model adapted to the Francophones of Winnipeg and to develop a plan to respond more effectively to needs for premises, programs and services at the Saint-Boniface Health Centre.
I'd like to mention one final project, the French-language primary health network. The idea here is to establish community health centres in two areas with large numbers of Francophones. These centres will enable the clientele of southeastern Manitoba to obtain primary health services in French, including health promotion and disease prevention services.
It is clear to us that these six achievements would not have been possible without investment by Health Canada and the support of Société Santé en français, two major institutions or organizations for the introduction of these services. We hope we'll be able to obtain your committee's support so that we can continue the work of improving services in our Francophone communities. As you can see, we've made an excellent start over the past two years, but it's only a start.
We're ready to answer your questions.