Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services and follow up on my Member’s statement. I know we have a lot of hard decisions coming at us with respect to health and social services as the system evolves and becomes more affordable. Clearly, without question, our training programs need to be considered and reviewed as well. I just want to make sure that we’re reviewing them with full knowledge.
As I’ve indicated earlier, the CHN development program, the stats speak for themselves. Things like the NP are a little bit more questionable and I think if we’re going to be reviewing things like the NP program, or, rather, the department’s going to be reviewing the NP program, we need to make sure that we’re doing it fairly. The intent of the program and what the college is doing is northern training for northern nurses for northern jobs is why we’re running the Nurse Practitioner Program. The college is doing that, there’s no question in my mind. Health and social services on the other side has to employ these nurse practitioners. I’m not sure that is necessarily happening.
My question for the Minister is: what is the Department of Health and Social Services doing, what work are they doing with the nurse practitioner students currently at Aurora College to help them transition into northern employment with us as nurse practitioners? What is the department doing? Have they met with the students? Are they doing grad placement with them? How are they going to ensure that those northern nurses practise nurse practitioner in the Northwest Territories?
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to thank the Member for the information he provided in his Member’s statement, because it is information that we are aware of. We had our briefing session on that. We are aware of the successes and challenges in the human resource programs that we have for the health care professionals. As the Member stated, I’d like to confirm that we are reviewing the program. We have to look at it fairly and comprehensively because we do have limited dollars, but at the same time we need to meet our priorities. So we will continue with that review.
With respect to the Nurse Practitioner Program, obviously I’m very interested in making sure that the program we fund to train these people will translate into employable positions within our system. We will evaluate that and monitor that and take actions accordingly.
Thanks to the Minister for that. My question was a little bit more focused on the current class. Right now if we’re going to evaluate the Nurse Practitioner Program and the end result is that the northern nurses don’t want to work in the Northwest Territories, I question the value of the program at all. If it turns out that the northern nurses do want to practise as nurse practitioners in the Northwest Territories but we’re not offering them employment, that doesn’t mean the program is a failure, it means we haven’t done our job of helping them transition in.
I talked to one of the nurse practitioners this weekend and she indicated to me that nobody from the department has talked to them at all. Nobody’s gone to the school to talk to the nurse practitioners about future employment. If we’re going to fairly assess this program and evaluate its future, I think we need to make every effort to make sure that we’re meeting with those people and helping them transition into employment to meet the need and intent of the program as it was originally designed.
Going back to my original question: is the department planning to go to the college and meet with these students and talk about future employment for nurse practitioners outside of Yellowknife? Hay River, Fort Smith, Inuvik, smaller communities? Even Yellowknife. Is that going to happen?
Placing all of those nurse practitioner grads into our system would require partnership between the department and the government as an employer and the graduating students. I could tell you that we have a history of really good work in employing those nurse practitioners coming out of Aurora College. We have enough nurse practitioner positions within the whole Territory to employ every one of them if they wanted a job. It is difficult to always match nurse practitioners and other health care professionals who graduate from our education system into the exact positions and communities that they would like to have.
Earlier in the House I committed to meeting with the nurse graduates of Aurora College. I’ve e-mailed them and they said they’ll get back to me. They were very excited to hear about that. I would commit to doing the same thing with the nurse practitioners.
I fully understand the challenges of trying to place nurses and nurse practitioners in the system and I’m very pleased that the Minister is committing to meet with or have her staff meet with the nurse practitioner students. I know they’d like that as well.
Secondary, sort of, to this is the IAP Program, it’s delivered by the same instructors who deliver the Nurse Practitioner Program and it’s all interrelated with the Community Health Nurse Development Program. For instance, IAP is an integral part to the CHN Development Program. My question to the Minister is: after the assessment, if the program is going to be eliminated, Nurse Practitioner, will there be additional consideration given the IAP to make sure that we continue to deliver it in some capacity? We need to think long term on this one. This is long-term planning. That program is critical. All nurses that work in health centres need it or should have it. The CHN Development Program is dependent on it. I’d like to know that it’s going to be given some consideration separate and above and apart from the Nurse Practitioner Program as well.
The short answer is yes, we would review each program separately and give them all due consideration. Just for the record, I think we should make it clear that a decision has not been made to discontinue the Nurse Practitioner Program. We did let them know that current funding commitment is until 2012 but, as the Member knows, because we had an in-depth briefing, we are reviewing the entire, well, we’re reviewing the Human Resource Training Program that we have with Department of Health and Social Services, not only because we’re always under financial constraints, but also because we want to make sure that the people we train are in line with the demands of the jobs that our system needs.
As I stated in our briefing session, we do need nurses and there are practitioners, but we’re also in need of other health care professionals such as home care workers, dental therapists. We need more people to be trained in counselling. We need personal attendants to get ready for the two long-term care facilities that we’re building in Behchoko and Norman Wells. As the Minister and as a department and as the government, we want to review who we are training so that they’re in line with the needs of jobs that are coming forward for the next number of years.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. Final supplementary, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I agree with everything that the Member is saying. We have to look at the system as a whole. I think that’s where I started my whole statement from. What I’m suggesting now is that it’s important when you’re looking at the NP and IAP as one program that you don’t think of them just as one program. They are two different programs and they need to be considered that way. Ultimately I support the Nurse Practitioner Program and don’t want to see it go anywhere. My question to the Minister was: will she look at the IAP as part of the whole, but also as an independent, important aspect of a separate program, the Community Health Nurse Program?
Yes, I said yes, and I’ll say it again. I understand the challenge that the Member is pointing out is the fact that right now we block fund the program to Aurora College. Yes, I will commit to reviewing that separately on the merit of each program.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.
