Mr. Speaker, I have questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services. Different topic.
Mr. Speaker, how many agency nurse contracts have been utilized since 2021? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Range Lake. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don't have that level of detail but I know that the Member did have a written question. I don't know if that I can't recall if that information was in there, but I can get back to the Member if we can compile that data. Thanks.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have in that question the Minister responded to, I have the dollar amount spent but not the actual individuals. So can the to be clear, how many times have individual agency nurses been brought in to Northwest Territories health care facilities? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, since 2020, I think that is when we started using agency nurses, I don't have the number of the contracts and that's the level of detail that is. What we are doing is we're using nurses where they're not going to shut down services. And, you know, I hear that the Member this is something that, you know, he's raised many times in this House but then when you go out to the small communities and they're shut down and the services are we can't find a nurse, you know, those are the communities that, you know, may have to utilize a nurse. And so we can continue to talk about how many and how many of this, but at the end of the day, the care that these the residents are getting, having a nurse in the community you know, sometimes we have to wait, you know, does this nurse know the community? Well, the nurse knows their job. So, you know, when we sit here and we go back and forth about these numbers, when right now we have five. We have five nurses agency nurses keeping obstetrics open in the Northwest Territories. And so we can continue to have these discussions on the floor but I am not going to jeopardize this service in this community. And if it was in a health centre, then we'd be medevacing everybody out of that health centre to Yellowknife or to Inuvik or to Fort you know, this is that's the option. So I'll leave it at that, Mr. Speaker. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Colleagues, if you're getting really into detail, maybe wish to put it as a written question, so. Member from Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, the Minister could tell me there are five right now so I thought she'd be able to look back with that recollection.
Mr. Speaker, we're going to keep asking questions about agency nurses as long as nurses who live and work here are upset about it and have a right to raise these concerns with their MLAs.
Mr. Speaker, how many times have agency nurses been used in small community health centres? Thank you.
I don't have that level of detail. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the reason I ask that is we're here they're only used for obstetrics, they're only used for these, like, hard to find units, we don't want them to shut down. But the concern is that we're going to lose health centres in small communities. So is the Minister aware of any circumstances right now where a small community health centre is going to be staffed with agency nurses?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Tlicho Service Agency staffs theirs when when they're on the verge of having no nursing and I know that, from my understanding and this is why I know that there's five, is because everybody time I come to the House I always ask my department, so how many agency nurses we have? Because I know this is going to be a question here. And so but I do know that, you know, the Tlicho Service Agency does utilize them to keep their health centres open and they have, you know, vacancies over the summer and so they may have to utilize those if they cannot find nurses to fill those vacancies. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
