Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, during my Member's statement I talked about my desire to see the old Stanton Hospital being used as a nursing school. I would like to ask the Minister of Education some questions on that.
Mr. Speaker, today the Minister of Health released a statement on the use of the existing Stanton Hospital as an extended care, long-term care, primary care, outpatient rehabilitation services facility. I would like to ask the Minister of Education if, in spite of that statement, the door would still be open for this government to use the old Stanton Hospital as a school. Thank you.
Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to start by saying that, when I was out campaigning, I heard from the doors in my riding in Range Lake many, many ideas, great ideas for the use of the Stanton Hospital, but I do have to kind of qualify and say that one of the mistakes that I have made since I have been here was that I ran for election too late. My honourable colleague here had already made a whole bunch of plans that he wanted to use for the old hospital before I could get my list in.
I would love to be able to use it for not only that, but a long list of great ideas to use that Stanton Hospital for, but my understanding at this point is that the old hospital is going to be totally used, and there is no more space. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
All of those uses fit perfectly with a school. Mr. Speaker, I am sure people have heard of university hospitals. They educate doctors, and doctors will actually work in the hospitals and become doctors, going to school at a university. I would like to ask the Minister if the Minister sees or agrees with me that the existing Stanton Hospital has potential to become a nursing school?
On a more serious note, in all honesty, it would be a great idea. There is more need than there actually are resources, but we do work closely with the Department of Health and Social Services. Our nursing program is one of the most successful programs that we have in Aurora College. That was shown in the foundational review, and we need to support that as best as possible.
It is important that our nursing students get access to clinical practicums, to provide appropriate services and to actually learn the hands-on skills. I can commit that we will continue to work closely with the Department of Health and Social Services to make sure that our nurses have the best access to providing patient care that we can.
I spoke many times in this House about the great potential of keeping seniors in their homes and the great deferral of cost should we keep seniors in their homes. I am going to repeat it again: for every senior who we keep out of long-term care, we defer $140,000 in today's money. With that, what I am asking the Minister to do is to work with the Cabinet colleagues, all Cabinet colleagues, including the Minister of Health, so that they could develop a school where the students are flowing through the Stanton Hospital and then ending up back in their communities to run homecare programs in their communities to keep the elders in their homes as long as possible.
My question for the Minister today is: will the Minister of Education work with all of the Cabinet Members so that they can look at this as a tremendous cost, a strategic spending item that will be a long-term investment and long-term return on the money that we are spending?
I will start by saying that, in my personal opinion, I think that all of Cabinet actually works very closely together, and we have very close relationships and are very respectful to each other and our needs. Within that, we do work closely with Health and Social Services to make sure that practicums are done within the old hospital and in the new hospital that will be coming. The Aurora foundational report does state that we need to look at our facilities. I will be talking to Cabinet about that, and to my colleagues, and working closely.
We all support each other, and it is important that we support each other. I know I am not supposed to speak for Cabinet, but I will at this point, saying that, in all honesty, we are all here because we care, and we recognize that. We try to do the best to support each other in our portfolios, and I will continue to do that.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister, in addition to working closely with other Cabinet Members, if they would also look at the document that was produced through the Department of Health and Social Services that looked at long-term care needs in the Northwest Territories, and see how they could use the old hospital to make a change, or look at that those numbers and change those numbers so that what appears to be now something that is looming, as the seniors are going to need long-term care, that this facility could be used to change those numbers.
Even though I know the Minister of Health has factored that in, I think that the school was never factored in. I would like to know if the Minister could commit to giving the information on what would happen if that was to be turned into a nursing school. Thank you.
Again, we work closely within Cabinet. We have a social committee that we talk about, and often we talk about how our different portfolios affect each other. I will commit to bringing the issue to the social committee.
The other thing I should state is that, within the Aurora College Foundational Report, it did say that we are too scattered. Not in those words, but it said that what we don't do well is that we jump on every opportunity, so we need to be more strategic. I took heed of that. We need to be strategic in what we are doing. I don't want to make commitments and say that we are going to go off and do this, we are going to go off and do that, because that is actually going against what the review is saying. We need to step back and look at all of our programs and make sure that they are providing quality programming. I do know that the nursing program is one of our best. We need to support that as much as possible, but we also need to be strategic and not reactive in how we provide our post-secondary education. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
