Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question today is for the Minister of Health and Social Services here. I heard from the Minister referring to training and staffing of the upcoming Norman Wells Sahtu Regional Health Facility. Can the Minister elaborate a little bit more on which positions are going to be advertised competitively? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With the opening of that new facility, and we plan to be moved in there and fully operational towards the end of the next calendar year, we do have to fully staff a long-term care unit. There is no long-term care unit in the Sahtu at this point so it's all new positions.
We're just in the process of quantifying how many positions that will be and they'll obviously include some kitchen staff, some support workers for the residents in the building, as well as some other janitorial positions, as well as some support positions like RNs. I don't have the exact numbers at this point. As soon as I'm aware of those numbers I will certainly share it with the Member. Thank you.
Could the Minister also highlight how many positions are going to be created on the higher-up administration level? Not so much a janitorial, sweeping the floor type positions here, but the administration.
Mr. Speaker, we have moved forward with Health Transformation, so we have the one authority here in the Northwest Territories as well as the Tlicho and Hay River. The senior management complement in the Sahtu is the same and is going to remain the same.
We have a CEO and a number of directors who are providing leadership within the region as well as some manager level jobs moving down. We aren't intending at this point to create any new jobs in that region in the senior management area; however, I will say that I have made a commitment to the people of the Northwest Territories and to the Member and to other Members that I want to support as much as possible training local people for local work. There are a number of those jobs that certainly we can train local people to do; other jobs are going to have some statutory requirements which makes it a bit tough.
In the health and social services system we have moved forward with some training of some local people for CEO roles; well, we're doing it in the Deh Cho, we've done it in Hay River. We're about to go out for staffing for a developmental COO position in the Sahtu and we're hoping to get a local person and train them up so that they can take over the role of the CEO after they have completed their appropriate training. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm very glad to hear that there is a vacancy in the secondary role, as COO trainee under the Northern Management Development Program. Could the Minister keep me posted on the progress of the advertising of this position? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
We hope to go out for an open competition on that developmental position shortly. I will certainly keep the Member informed once we have a candidate; I'll also let him know who the candidate is, and hopefully we'll be able to find a solid person who in a couple of years can take over that CEO role in the Sahtu. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Mackenzie Delta.
