Presently there’s a health crisis going on in the Inuvik region. It has to do with providing medical services to the whole Mackenzie Delta and Beaufort Sea communities and Inuvik itself. Right now we’re short some five doctors in Inuvik; we’re down to four doctors when we should have nine. Clinic tours to our communities have been cancelled because of the shortage of doctors. In regard to the collective negotiation that’s going on, they seem to have no problem filling the Yellowknife Stanton hospital, which has some 27 positions. Out of that, 26 are filled.
Yet, Mr. Speaker, this health crisis we have in our communities is…. Without having medical services by way of shortages of nurses and, more importantly, doctors…. Doctors are the ones who play the most important role in our health care system. Without doctors, we’re just another Third World country.
I’d like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services: what are we doing as a government to ensure we have the capacity to deal with delivering health care services, especially with the shortage of doctors in the Inuvik region?
Mr. Speaker, I thank the Member for the question. As I indicated to the Member from Nunakput yesterday, we are experiencing a very unusual situation, even within the context of the shortages of doctors and health care professionals we normally face.
This month two doctors were on scheduled leave, and the other two decided to move elsewhere to practise. Right now we are operating with about 50 per cent of our normal complement of doctors.
We are actively searching to fill the positions by locums so that we can provide the services. Beaufort-Delta made a choice of not being able to have the doctors visit communities, but we continue to provide services through the nurses in our clinics, who are able to be in touch with the doctors.
This is a very serious situation. We are aware of that, and we are working hard to fix the situation.
The time for question period has expired. I will allow the Member a supplementary question.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The whole health care system is dependent on four doctors to provide services to eight communities in the Beaufort-Delta Region. It’s not realistic to ask these doctors to provide that service and also ensure that we will have a stable health care system.
Also, the Minister stated that nurses….
Please ask your question, Mr. Krutko.
Mr. Speaker, it’s not only the crisis with the doctors. We also have shortages with nurses in communities where our health centres are being closed or put on emergency notice.
Can the Minister tell me exactly how many health care centres in the Inuvik region are on emergency notice, where they can only deal with emergency cases?
Mr. Speaker, all eight communities in the Beaufort-Delta Region are on a regular course of business. They do have the full nursing and primary health care services, including nurse practitioners and nurses.
We are not able to have doctors make regularly scheduled visits to communities as they usually have done, once or twice a month. Right now the community health nurses and nurse practitioners have to rely on doctors’ services by phone.
We are working hard to fill the positions with the locums and to have more doctors in place in that region as soon as possible. We do understand this is a very unusual situation.
A short supplementary, Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Can the Minister tell me exactly how soon these doctors’ positions can be filled in the Inuvik region so that the residents of the Beaufort-Delta Region will have some comfort, knowing that those positions will be filled?
Mr. Speaker, this is on high alert, obviously, because we only have four full-time-equivalent positions, or hours available, of doctors’ services out of the eight that we normally have.
We are doing everything we possibly can to fill them with the locums and to fill the permanent positions as soon as possible.
Final, short supplementary, Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister give me a month, date, year by which she’s going to fill these positions?
Mr. Speaker, yesterday I stated in the House that we would like to have the full complement by the end of March, either by locums or by other means, but we are hoping we could do it sooner than that, if at all possible.
