Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I mentioned in my opening statement, I have questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services. One of the benefits I mentioned earlier in my statement, what would it really cost to station a nurse in Tsiigehtchic? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If we were to station one nurse in Tsiigehtchic, I would assume that just the cost of the salary would be approximately $120,000 with all the benefits and everything, but we would not be able to station just one nurse in Tsiigehtchic.
What savings does the Health department estimate there would be as a result of reducing travel and some lowering of the need for critical care?
According to the integrated service delivery model we are using and have been using for a while that we are updating, there would be a savings of travel, that’s true, of medical travel and so on. To what degree I don’t have that information here with me, because we haven’t tested that to the degree where we are trying to put a service in Tsiigehtchic, but we haven’t cost out to what degree that would save by having a registered nurse in Tsiigehtchic at this time.
Will the Minister station a licenced practical nurse in Tsiigehtchic on a full-time basis as a pilot project?
We are actually looking at that. What we are doing with the integrated service delivery model is determining what service is most often needed in each of the communities, going right from the smallest community to the largest community, and what is the most common service that is required. Within that model what we do is determine how much service, how many nurses are needed in each community. Then we have the issue of safety, and within that issue the Canadian Association of Nursing has one criterion, I suppose, in as far as the amount of population that would be needed to accommodate a nurse. What they’re saying is that because there is, we are not allowed to place one nurse in a station by themselves due to safety reasons, that we need at least two nurses and you have to have a population of at least 250 people in one location in order to accommodate two nurses, whether they are registered nurses or LPNs.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final supplementary, Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Will the Minister budget for one nurse and one LPN in Tsiigehtchic as part of the budget for 2013-2014?
As I indicated, we are looking at that. We need to determine the needs by how using that integrated service delivery model will, again, determine the scope of practice that is presented to every community through all the of physician fields. With that model we have to make that decision to use our resources where they have the greatest impact. We’re not pleased that we have communities that do not have nursing, there’s no question about it, but we have to make the right decision. It’s very difficult to pay people on a full-time basis for doing nothing. That’s what happens sometimes when you have a population base that’s too small and too many resources to respond to that population base.
However, we’ve talked about the idea if you do have individual nurses in Tsiigehtchic, they’re 20 minutes away on the road to a larger populated area, being Fort McPherson. So we may actually have to work with both communities in order to try to accommodate a nurse being located in Tsiigehtchic. Again, working with the authority and the department, we’re trying to look at all those models. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
