Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. So noting in the Minister's statement today that one of our current initiatives is employee engagement for retention, can the Minister describe any specific retention strategy that we currently have in place that would hopefully lead us to decrease our reliance on agency nurses and locum doctors? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife North. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, if I want to answer that as best as I can but I might you might cut me off. So I'll highlight some of the areas. And I want to be clear that, you know, it's important to note that the use of agency nurses is always the last resort. It's aimed at preventing unit or health care health centre closures and to increase to keep adequate staffing levels, you know, and we've seen that we've had to close areas in our health care before. And right now and I you know, I'll continue to repeat it because it is across Canada that we're having a health care shortage of all types of health care workers. So as specific to the retention strategies that we are doing, there are it is very multifaceted depending on nurses, doctors, you know, and so we're guided by the Northwest Territories health and social services system human resource plan, and with particularly goal number 4 which emphasizes increased employee engagement throughout organizational change and leadership development.
We've introduced several initiatives to address recruitment and retention, and some of those just to be on time are new measures like using paramedic use in different areas that we would normally not use to make up for that. The friends and family travel program, and that was used over Christmas of last year. Referral programs, so people that nurses or other health care professionals can refer somebody they know and if they get an indeterminate position out of it, they'll get a financial bonus for that. And we've had a couple so far with that.
Reimbursing of licensing fees for locum physicians; we've always done that for nurses. The creation of onboarding specialists positions. The covering of international travel costs for NWT, for Canadian health care professionals living abroad who wish to relocate to the NWT and work, recruitment and retention bonuses. So these are some of the things that, you know, we've done, and, you know, I hear the Member and employee engagement is important and so, you know, if there's areas that we're not engaging or we're not hearing from the Members, I would like to work with the Members on that side of the House to be able to come up with some like, better ways to engage with staff. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As a followup, can the Minister explain how we're monitoring progress on retention over time? So specifically on retention, I know it's easy to combine recruitment and retention, but I'm specifically talking about retention in this case, but are we monitoring progress and monitoring retention rates over time and publishing the results of that?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, you know, I think the NTHSSA right now is continuously trying to they're monitoring employee engagement through formal mechanisms as surveys and formal means like all staff meetings, daily newsletters that go out to all staff, a robust information hub for staff in line with the NTHSSA system. And then, you know, with other areas and but, again, like I hear from the Member, you know, I worked in that area. You're busy. You're working. You're not working normal hours. So when you're not able to access the information through certain ways, and, again, if there's better ways to engage with staff, then, you know, if the Members have some ideas, let's work together to figure out how do we get all of the information that our staff need and that their feedback is important to us, ensuring that they have you know, that they're happy in their jobs. We want them to be here and stay here. So we know we're recruiting them, retraining them. We're working on that data, and, you know, and I think that's where this new the new agreement that was announced today, there's actually positions in there that's going to help emphasize that engagement with staff and, you know, exit interviews and things like that. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate that the Minister might not have this data at her fingertips now, but can the Minister commit to providing Members with the total cost spent on agency nurses and locum doctors for this past fiscal year and compare that to preCOVID times showing trends over time, so providing the stats on cost spent on agency nurses and locum doctors over time?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don't have that level of detail for the Member, so I'll have to get back to the Member for that. Thank you.
I will just add a final request is whether the Minister can commit to providing us with similar statistics on overtime costs from I would like it specifically for Stanton Hospital that show trends over the past decade from preCOVID to the present. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, you know, as a past manager I know that the managers get this, and it's highlighted, and so managers are as part of their regular variance review have this information. So I can get back to the Member on, like, just for Stanton and those specific details. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Oral questions. Member from the Deh Cho.
