Mr. Chairman, I guess the other thing I wanted to talk about was the reduction in the nursing position at North Slave Correctional Centre. There is not going to be any coverage on the weekends, I’m to understand, because of this reduction.
I’m wondering if the department has done any work on trying to figure out what it’s going to cost. We’ve all been to the emergency room at Stanton. It can take six to eight hours to get in to see a doctor there. If that’s going to take a corrections guard out of that facility with an inmate to go to the hospital on the weekends to see a doctor, a nurse practitioner or whoever’s there, that’s just not good enough use of his time. They should be staying in the facility and not having to transport inmates over to the hospital on the weekends.
I’m wondering if the Minister has any idea of the impact that would cause to the operations at the facility on the weekends if guards are going to have to take inmates over to the hospital on a regular basis.
Ms. Schofield.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The nursing position that’s been eliminated has been vacant for some time now. It’s anticipated that with the reduction in the scheduling, they will be able to accommodate the workload and that there is no plan for any impact on the service provided to our inmates.
Does that mean there will be full coverage at that facility over the weekend?
There won’t be full coverage, but it’s not an everyday occurrence at Corrections. But certainly, that is one area that we did highlight as the Justice Department before we even went to cutting the vacant position. There wasn’t much weekend activity. Mahsi.
My fear is that if there is no coverage on the weekends, inmates are going to want to go to the hospital. If they need to go to the hospital, they are going to go to the hospital, and when they go to the hospital, there is going to have to be a guard or two guards with them when they go. Vacant position or not, I think we need to have coverage at that facility on the weekends.
Certainly there are incidents at the Corrections. The avenue that, I guess, we’ll access will be at Stanton. But we will certainly continue to monitor that. Mahsi.
Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I had a couple of questions also on the nursing support services for the North Slave Correctional Centre but also for the South Mackenzie Correctional Centre. There is a proposal to reduce funding for these functions by the amount of $109,000. I have heard now that for North Slave it will be the elimination of a vacant position at the North Slave Correctional Centre. What is proposed to be eliminated in terms of service or people in the South Mackenzie Correctional Centre?
Deputy Minister Cooper.
There is one maintenance position, and it is the only position in that facility, so there is only one affected employee. It has been recommended to senior management that this could be done. The DPW looks after the more sophisticated and complicated repairs and maintenance that need to be done. The COs and the inmates can look after the more minor maintenance matters. We understand that there will be two retirements this summer, and the affected employee is almost certain to get one of those positions as a corrections officer.
To my question, I am not clear. Is there any proposed change to the support at South Mackenzie Correctional Centre for nursing support?
Minister of Justice.
Mr. Chair, to answer the question for the Member, no, that is not part of the plan. Mahsi.
Can the Minister please tell me: what is the anticipated savings from the elimination of the vacant position at the North Slave Correctional Centre?
The proposed savings by eliminating the position would be $87,000. Mahsi.
So the savings of eliminating a vacant position for a nurse at the North Slave Correctional Centre…. Will there still be a nurse at the North Slave Correctional Centre working Monday to Friday?
Yes, that is correct. There will be a position there.
Why was the position vacant? How long has it been vacant, and why was it vacant?
We don’t have that detailed information at this time, but we can certainly provide that to the Members. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Mrs. Groenewegen.
