Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, access to healthcare professionals, family diagnosis and treatment is a paramount to our residents.
Mr. Speaker, will the Minister of Health confirm if her department is working on a health recruitment and retention action plan and will it identify why it is that recruitment of professional healthcare workers is proving difficult in the North? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Hay River South. Minister responsible for Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, my thanks to the Member for highlighting this area. Yes, indeed, we are keen to recruit and retain healthcare professionals. We have developed a health human resources workforce plan, which will be made public next month. It's a threeyear plan that looks at a variety of measures to bring to bring healthcare professionals to the Northwest Territories and to have them to have them live here over the long term.
Not only that, Mr. Speaker, I have been successful in persuading my federal colleagues at the FPT health ministers' table to create a national health human resources workforce plan. And so there's work going on in several front to address this issue, which is not unique to Canada or even the Northwest Territories but is, in fact, a global issue. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, will the Minister confirm that while waiting on tabling the report, if her department has been considering implementing alternative recruitment methods or providing various incentives to encourage healthcare professionals to move North as it appears that we know that the current system just hasn't been working? Thank you.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have conducted or the nurses association has conducted a couple of surveys to find out why it is that people are not coming here and not staying here. And certainly, we have heard the cost of living here is an issue; separation from family in the south is an issue; the burnout, which we've all heard about in the healthcare professions, is an issue. The labour pool is smaller than it was. And we've also heard that while we have been a generous employer in the past, the gap between what we offer and what's offered in the south has closed in the last few months.
We did, as the Member may know, create a market adjustment policy to target bonuses for hard to recruit professions. We were unsuccessful in having the union buy into that. But we realize that this this is an ongoing issue, and we haven't given up on looking at ways to increase compensation as well as try different recruitment methods.
One recruitment method that I'm particularly interested in is the possibility of bringing health human resource workers from Ukraine who may be part of the diaspora that is occurring now, people leaving Ukraine because of the war. We're certainly interested in having them come to the NWT with all their professions, including health human resources. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, will the Minister of Health confirm what options are available to residents outside Yellowknife who cannot access timely medical services in their home community due to physician or staff shortages? Does Stanton have sufficient staff and beds available to take on patients from other communities? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I heard the Member say in his statement that our health was at risk, and I would just like to say that, in fact, we have the resources to cope with the health care demand as it exists now, both at Stanton and in the regional centres. We have protocols in place that enable us to surge with staff and beds to meet the needs of patients and also to assist the telehealth medical professionals in the regional centres and in the health care centres to treat the residents who come their way. So at this point, while our resources are thin, we do believe that we are meeting the demand that is being presented for basic health services. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, will the Minister confirm if medical travel costs would be available to residents who travel with or without a referral to Yellowknife or a southern community to seek appointments not available in their home community due to staff shortages? Thank you.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I've had versions of this question recently, and I would like to confirm that medical travel only is paid when the patient has been referred by an NWTbased physician for additional care. And so somebody who decides to jump in their vehicle and drive to Edmonton for a diagnostic or treatment services would be doing so at their own expense. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Thebacha.
