Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Health. We haven’t had an update lately on doctor recruitment and how that’s going. I’m wondering if the department has any additional information to add on to how we are progressing with getting doctors in the North and into the smaller communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Minister of Health, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The recruitment and retention of physicians continues to be a challenge, but I think at this point in time we are actually doing fairly well. We have moved to a system where all the physicians are actually employees of one body rather than multiple bodies. This has actually given us some opportunities, because individuals can now have rights and access to Stanton even if they don’t happen to live in Yellowknife.
When we originally went to this one model, the expectation was that we’d be having physicians in Yellowknife who can actually provide services in other communities like Fort Smith or Hay River or any of the communities in the Sahtu and up the valley. What we have found is by having one system where all the doctors were part of one system, we’ve actually been able to recruit doctors in places like Fort Smith and Inuvik because they are part of the system rather than independent bodies. So that was a happy surprise.
We continue to recruit on a regular basis, but at this point in Yellowknife we are pretty close to having a full complement of doctors. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I have questions specific to Hay River and I’m wondering, because of Hay River’s special consideration of not being part of GNWT employees, if we’re having any difficulties in putting those doctors into Hay River. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Unless anything has changed in the last little while, my last update was that we actually did manage to get a permanent physician into Hay River. I will check with the department to confirm that. But the reality of being outside of the public service hasn’t interfered with this medical process in obtaining physicians.
My next question about the doctors is: Are we getting them to move to the Northwest Territories? Are they staying in the Northwest Territories? Are we still using a lot of the locums to come into the Northwest Territories and then go back to their home communities in southern Canada?
We actually have filled a large number of the physician positions on a permanent basis. But given that we do have a contract here in the Northwest Territories, those physicians who are resident here are entitled to education time and sick time as well as annual time. We want to make sure that we are continuing to provide services, so there is still a use of locums. But for the most part, in Yellowknife, in Hay River, in the Beaufort-Delta we’ve been able to get physicians in on a permanent basis. But until all positions are filled that way, we will continue to use some locums.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bouchard.
I guess the other question that I have about health and professionals is are there other positions that we are having difficulties filling, whether it’s any specialists in any of the communities or in Yellowknife that we’re having troubles filling?
I guess that would depend on the definition of trouble. Health professionals are a hard-to-recruit position. We continue to recruit on a regular basis, but for many of the allied health professions there is high turnover. We’re actually putting into force a strategic plan, a Health Human Resource Strategic Plan that is going to put in a number of mechanisms and tools to help us recruit and retain health professionals across the Northwest Territories. But we keep at it, we keep staffing, we keep filling, but turnover is a reality that we do have to work with.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
