Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to follow up on my Member’s statement. I have some questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services with regard to our health system reform. The Minister spoke yesterday about moving doctors around. From Hansard I have a sentence where he stated, “We are actually starting on the process now.” I feel that reworking how we use our doctors and changing our system of hiring doctors, and how we assign doctors to their jobs is something that we really need to do relative to getting reform done and I think the Minister agrees with me. I’d like to know where we’re at in this process.
As I mentioned in my statement, it’s been several years. We’ve literally put millions of dollars, I think $3.5 million last year, into the Foundation for Change. What have we got to show for that money? Where are we at in the process of changing the way that we use our doctors so that we can get them in the communities where we need them?
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Although we see that it’s difficult to fill doctors’ positions in the regional centres where the positions are located – Fort Smith, Hay River, Inuvik, Norman Wells and Fort Simpson – that’s still our first priority. Our first priority is still to try to fill those positions in those communities. Failing that, we’re having discussions and have had discussions with the Joint Leadership Council, which are the boards or public administrators, to talk about the possibility of having one system pooling doctors in Yellowknife and having the locums come out of Yellowknife as opposed to having locums that come out from other parts of the country.
Thanks to the Minister. I appreciate that. One of the things that I have heard talk of and that the Australian system highlighted is a central command, so to speak, for medical assistance where doctors are available 24/7 and they can assist communities or small health centres elsewhere with difficult problems. The Minister said that they’re discussing things with the health authorities and I recognize that needs to be done, but this has been ongoing for quite some time. I guess I need to know from the Minister – if we’re going to do reform, that usually indicates that change is taking place – when can we expect to see some change in how we use our doctors.
Right now we have three public administrators in place of boards. That is at Stanton, Beaufort-Delta and Hay River. In our initial discussions in the communities, the communities had indicated that they would like to see the boards put back in with representatives from the communities. We would like to consult with the new boards or with the current boards. That doesn’t mean that we’re going to wait until all the boards are in place before we start to make a move on this. We’re going right to the communities and indicating that that’s what we wish to do. So we have actually had the very initial discussions already at the community level in the Beaufort-Delta with the Joint Leadership Council about this.
As I indicated earlier, there is opposition, but at the same time what is the alternative. The alternative is continuing a system now that is costly and using locums from the South. So we’re again, first priority, fill in the community at the regional level, second priority, fill in Yellowknife.
Thanks to the Minister. I have to disagree that we need to get rid of the PAs and establish boards. I am happy to hear the Minister say that we’re not going to wait until the boards are in place. I think the Yellowknife Stanton Territorial Health Authority has been without a board for 10 or 12 years. Goodness knows that we can’t wait for those boards to be in place. I think there’s a responsibility on the part of the government to put their foot down and say this is how we’re going to do things. Yes, there needs to be consultation, but when push comes to shove, it’s our responsibility to make a decision.
NPs, nurse practitioners are also part of changing the system. The Minister spoke a little bit yesterday about some of the ways that we use our NPs. I think he stated that we have nine nurse practitioners and most of them are in Yellowknife. I’d like to quote from a 2010 statement from practicenorth.ca which says a commitment has been made to expand the use of nurse practitioners in every health centre, clinic and emergency room in the NWT by 2010.
I’d like to ask the Minister, if we have nine nurse practitioners we obviously haven’t met the goal of 2010, but when can we expect to see a significant expansion of the number of nurse practitioners in the NWT. Thank you.
I can’t give that information. I don’t know when we’re going to be expanding nurse practitioners. What I do know is that when we do produce nurse practitioners, educate registered nurses to become nurse practitioners, their desire to work in Yellowknife is greater than the desire to go over to the regional centres. That’s why we had the nurse practitioners here. We’d love to have nurse practitioners in the regional centres. We’d love to have the nurse practitioners in the larger communities because they do have an expanded role more than registered nurses. But at this time, they are here.
At this time we have several systems that are competing for those resources. Yellowknife is an attractive place. Yellowknife is not a real issue as far as attracting doctors and so on. I think we have 21… I don’t know the numbers right off the top of my head, but we have quite a few doctors here in Yellowknife between the Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority, which has a board, and the Stanton Health Authority, which has a public administrator. But those are not real issues, because we’re able to retain doctors here. We’re able to attract doctors here, and obviously we’re also able to retain nurse practitioners here. But because the system is that these health authorities compete against other health authorities because they’re separate systems, then the nurse practitioner has an option, because they could have several offers once they become practitioners. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Your final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s difficult to be short. I don’t know where to start. I guess I need to now ask the Minister, he stated that we need to make changes, he stated that the health authorities compete with each other. What is the department doing to ensure that the authorities do not compete with each other for specialized staff such as NPs and doctors? What kind of a plan is there? What is the department doing on the ground to get the people that we need in the Territories and in our communities? Thank you.
We’re trying to reform governance, first of all. We are trying to work with the human resources to get professional at attracting practitioners. But the key is consultation. We have to consult with the communities in order to reform governance. We can’t go in there and say you’re losing five positions, Hay River, they’re going to be moved here; Fort Smith is losing all their doctors, they’re going to be moved here without proper consultation. At the first Joint Leadership Council some of the board members were not happy with this. They want us to continue to push and sell the communities where those doctors are located, and some of the MLAs in here said use us to sell our communities to attract doctors. That’s what we wish to do. We want to do that. Our priority would be to have, like I said, in the communities. Unfortunately, we’re having difficulty. We can fill five doctors all at once and that seems to be the way to go, or seven all at once, or nine all at once. It’s very difficult to fill the first doctor position or the second doctor position. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
