Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I would like to rise again in this House to talk about the issue of the doctor shortage in Hay River. When I came to Hay River almost 40 years ago, the hospital and the medical clinic were operated by the Pentecostal Sub-Arctic Mission. As part of their recruitment of staff for the hospital, they also recruited doctors, and many of those doctors made a long-term commitment to Hay River.
Over the years the practice of medicine has changed. It seems gone are the days of a family practitioner hanging up a shingle in a small town and staying there and being on call for every emergency that comes up in the community, delivering everyone’s baby. I mean, those picture-perfect, kind of, old-fashioned days will soon be gone. Young doctors now graduating from medical school want to have a life where they can devote time to their family, and travel, and all kinds of other things. Also, the training for general practitioners has changed now where everybody either is a general practitioner or they specialize in something, and so this has made quite an impact on the delivery of medical services in Hay River.
Culminating at the same time as the departure of the Sub-Arctic Mission was a national doctor shortage. That came about, I believe, partly as a result of a decision that was made in the halls of power somewhere that they would reduce the number of training seats for medical doctors in our educational institutions across the country, so we had the unfortunate situation of a Canadian doctor shortage at the same time as a long-standing institution that had attracted doctors to Hay River was departing that role and giving up that contract.
Since then, Hay River has continued to struggle. We’ve had good locums. We’ve had repeat locums. We’ve had people in the health authority in Hay River who have put forward a very valiant effort to try and recruit doctors. Unfortunately, again, when you are the first doctor in on a full-time basis and you’re in a small town, it doesn’t matter if you’re on call. You’re always on call. If there’s a motor vehicle accident, if there’s an emergency of any kind, necessarily, because of what you can offer, you will be called upon.
We have had a hard time in Hay River to recruit that first doctor. Once we get that first one, then it seems like it would be easier to recruit. The doctor shortage has alleviated. We have seen some progress, and I am very, very happy to have been informed, with my colleague Mr. Bouchard last night, by our Minister of Health and Social Services, that Hay River has signed a permanent doctor, the first one in many years on a three-year contract. Thank you.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Colleagues, before we go on today, it’s always good to have family in the House, especially my mother who is here today with us. It’s good to have her here. She’s going to clean up my apartment.
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Thank you, colleagues. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
