Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m going to be speaking today about the Northern Nursing Program at Aurora College. As Members are well aware, this program became a four-year degree-granting program a few years ago. It is affiliated with the University of Victoria.
One of Ms. Lee’s first speeches as Minister of Health and Social Services was to address first-year students of the Northern Nursing Program at Aurora College in the fall of 2007. Ms. Lee’s address that day was full of encouragement, support, and promise of full-time employment in the Northwest Territories for each graduating student. Well, these students that Ms. Lee addressed back in 2007 are now just months away from concluding the program and what is very alarming is the lack of any job openings for graduate nurses in the Northwest Territories.
I’d like to understand how the Minister explains the lack of postings and the promise of employment for new grads. What about our expensive addiction to locum and agency nurses in the Northwest Territories? Where is the plan to integrate our northern nursing grads into our health care system in our Territory? Conceptually, wasn’t the idea of having our own Northern Nursing Program at Aurora College our best effort to alleviate our reliance on agency and locum nurses?
It would be a shame if we trained and developed grads from our Northern Nursing Program and then they packed up their families and left our Territory. Certainly you would think the Department of Health and Social Services and this government would have a plan to accommodate new grads; not just this year but in the years to come.
There are scheduled to be 19 new grads in 2011, 16 grads in 2012, and 32 grads in 2013. I find it very disturbing that the Minister and the department will be making decisions in the near future in the absence of any sound planning. I’ll certainly have some questions for the Minister at the appropriate time.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
