Robert Hawkins

I appreciate that. Would the Minister commit to making sure my office is informed? I don’t sit on the Social Programs Committee, but would he commit to keeping me informed of all steps and developments of this, whether it’s in regard to consultation with committee, the general public or other jurisdictions? Any information he can make available to me I’d appreciate.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Although I had asked this question, I would just like ultimate certainty.

I have a constituent who uses the services at the dialysis unit, and it's my understanding that that position has been left vacant or unfilled or other — and I’ll leave “other” pretty vague — and I just want to make sure it is fully staffed at this time. What is the exact staff of that whole unit again, just to make sure it’s on record?

Those are excellent words. I’m really appreciative of the fact that this Minister is willing to lead this initiative, although it has had some bumps and grinds on the way. The fact is that it’s an important element of protection. When can we expect something like this to happen?

Mr. Chairman, I didn’t get an answer as to whether we have lost any to this program, where we’ve trained them and they didn’t want to go to the communities. How many have we lost because they decided to seek employment outside of the Northwest Territories, because quite obviously their first choice was not a small community so they’ve packed up and left? I’m trying to get a sense of how many we’ve lost and what that’s cost us in government money that’s been invested for that. I just want to make sure our investment is going in the right direction, which is filling nurse practitioner positions...

On that Telehealth position, what analysis was done on that?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods Act was a groundbreaking initiative brought forward during the 15th Assembly in an attempt to deal with the drug trafficking and crimes devastating our communities. Although the SCAN bill died an unfair death, the problems it was meant to address still continue. Law-abiding citizens continue to be intimidated by crack dealers and bootleggers in their neighbourhoods and are frustrated by the inability of the police to shut down these operations, not to mention the time it takes to do that. With drug houses next to our schools, our...

Then what’s the plan in the department for those people who come to the end of their term and there are no existing nurse practitioner positions? Is it a plan to convert existing RN positions into nurse practitioner positions, as primary care, obviously? And if there is, what’s the cost to do a transition from an RN to an NP position?

Seeing as we’re on the dialysis positions, how many positions are dedicated to that type of treatment in the unit?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to be clear, if the Minister can provide the information to ensure whether we are training more NP nurses than we have available positions.

It’s not a question of whether I support training or not. That should never be put into question, because I do. The principle, really, is value for money. If we don’t have positions for them to fill, it draws the question as to how big of a resource pool of nurse practitioners do we need.

The other thing is these temporary positions we create and fill with newly trained nurse practitioners. Are they limited by their...

Mr. Chairman, under Stanton Territorial Health Authority I see we have five in growth. Is that a net gain of five, or was there a growth of, say, 6 or 7 and the loss of a couple? Is that a net, or what type of change has happened at the Stanton Hospital?