Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I spoke in this House before about mental health workers in my region and the inability to keep them. I just want to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services about what kind of retention strategy do we have for our mental health and social workers in our regions and communities.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The Minister of Health, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is right; we do continue to have issues with retaining mental health and addictions counsellors as well as counsellors throughout the system. It’s a difficult position to fill and it is a position that does come with a significant amount of burnout, given that the individuals are often working with very difficult situations. We are coming forward with a new Human Resource Strategy within the Department of Health and Social Services and we plan to release that later this month, so that will start to outline some of the work that we’re doing to recruit as well as retain health professionals. I’m happy to share that with the Member when we release it. Thank you.
I’m glad that the department recognizes it. Most particularly in Fort Liard it was during the spring and summer months when there’s a family crisis or life upsets, usually that’s when the mental health workers are not available. We’ve got the opportunity where there’s a contractor out of Fort Nelson that comes up, but when it comes to something like that, consistency is key. It would be nice to have somebody that’s there. So I wonder if this new Mental Health Strategy will include a retention component and a component that addresses coverage when there’s nobody available in the communities. Thank you.
I hate to make assumptions, but I assume the Member was actually talking about the Human Resource Strategy and not the Mental Health Strategy and it does talk to recruitment and retention initiatives, but we’ve got to look at things in the short, medium and long term. Ultimately the long-term solution would be to find the individuals from the region and train them to take over those roles, but that is going to take some time. We’ve got to start working with the Aboriginal governments and community governments to really pick the right people, and our Human Resource Strategy does talk to that. But in the meantime, we still have to do some short-term recruitment and we’re also going to need to work with the communities and try to find alternatives and encourage people from the communities to pursue training. So there are a lot of things that need to be done. In the meantime, we’re going to keep staffing those positions as best we can.
As far as meeting demand in the critical times, this is one of the things that a move towards a territorial health system is going to help us with, because being able to move individuals on an emergency basis to help communities when they’re in crisis and right now every authority has to rely on the staff they have, and if they’re already short staffed, it makes it really, really difficult on them.
So there are multiple opportunities here, but I do hear the Member, we do need to do more and I’m looking forward to moving forward with the one system as well as moving forward with the Human Resource Strategy. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Yes, I was leaning towards more the Human Resource Strategy. I know that the Minister has done a lot on it, but I think particular attention should be paid to the retention strategy. I don’t know if they’re adding some extra benefits or more breaks for these workers in the smaller communities. Maybe the Minister can speak to those aspects of it. Thank you.
When it comes to additional time off and things like that, we are bound by the terms and conditions in the Collective Agreement. So we have to find ways to recruit as well as retain our professionals within the working environment that we have. But we are open to suggestions and recommendations from committee. I would say that if committee has some ideas, we did share the draft plan with them, they did provide us with some input, but it’s a living document and we’re open to suggestions from Members, from communities, from Aboriginal governments, anybody that can help us find ways to recruit and retain the professionals that we have and that we need to have in our communities. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
