Today I'd like to revisit a topic I raised last fall with the former Minister of Health and Social Services, and that is of space utilization at Stanton Territorial Hospital.
After numerous requests to former Ministers, a staffing review and HR plan were going to be developed for Stanton. That work is still in progress, but the early indications would suggest that a lack of work space and delivery of services in cramped spaces is leading to stress in the workplace.
Last year the hospital turned a patient lounge on the surgery ward into office space. Washrooms and patient rooms have also been converted to office space. Just recently I have become aware of plans to turn the patient lounge on Medicine into office space, and if that's not enough, in addition to that, the hospital is also looking at the potential use of the nursery on OBS to be used for office space.
Is nothing sacred in regard to the proliferation of office and administrative staff space in our hospital? What's going to be next? The chapel?
What the department needs to do is come up with a plan to relocate administrative and office space out of the hospital, so that the required and essential services that patients, families and health care professionals that work there and deserve to have…. They need the necessary space to operate in and can't be crammed into small spaces. This would certainly help our health care professionals who are challenged day in and day out because of the poor planning and poor decision-making by the hospital and by the Department of Health and Social Services.
Our residents deserve the dedicated, well-run health care facility that Stanton can and should be. Stanton Territorial Hospital is the flagship of our health care system, not some glorified office and administrative building that does not contribute to servicing the health care needs of our residents.
It seems that the department is always quick to study and plan without actually making any progress. It has been referred to in the past as the “Department of Perpetual Planning.” It’s time the department shed that label and took back our hospital for the residents and health care professionals who so desperately want to get our hospital back to being a hospital.
Please, do not turn any more space into offices, especially the nursery. Thank you.
Item 4, returns to oral questions. Item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery. Mr. Jacobson.
