Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Minister of Health and Social Services. In my research, I understand that there are 71 positions within the Sahtu Health and Social Services Authority. Thirteen of these positions are vacant. The following communities have vacancies: Deline has three vacancies, Tulita has one, Norman Wells has eight vacancies, Fort Good Hope has one vacancy.
Why are these important vacancies not filled, some of them since September 2014 of last year?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is correct; there are a significant number of vacancies in the Sahtu and we recognize that it’s a problem and we’re working closely with the Sahtu Health and Social Services Authority to find ways to fill these positions. There are active recruitments on a number of positions, and in some cases until we can find somebody on a more permanent basis, we have been filling some of them with casuals, but that doesn’t change the need to find permanent staff.
There’s a number of reasons that we may be having difficulties. Some individuals, some of those positions require real solid knowledge, skills and ability and some statutory requirements, but the Sahtu Authority has held discussions with community leadership on more effective approaches to providing a range of culturally appropriate mental health services, because one of the larger vacancies we have is around mental health services in the Sahtu and they’re in the early stages of designing a pilot project in partnership with one of the communities to see if there’s a more innovative way or a better way to involve local people to provide some more stability in the Sahtu. So, we’re looking forward to seeing how that goes. In the interim, we continue to actively recruit, and hopefully we’ll be able to fill those positions in short order. Thank you.
I look forward to the pilot project partnership study. The communities of Deline, Tulita, Norman Wells, Colville Lake, the mental health and addictions counsellors positions have been vacant since August 2014, September 2014. These positions have been vacant for well over a year. I want to know from this Minister and also from our Health and Social Services Health Board about these positions. We have given the Minister some creative ideas, solutions.
Why are we not having these positions filled? Can we not do something different? We seem to be running up the same old issue of credentials and academic credibility. Well, we have another method using the Aboriginal context of looking after ourselves. Why is the Minister not exploring that issue?
I hear the Member, and that is exactly the type of thing that is being done with this new pilot study, looking at new ways to involve communities and find alternate ways to provide services in communities and looking at local solutions.
I have also had an opportunity to travel around the Northwest Territories and talk to leadership, and every time I meet with leadership, I talk about the vacancies that we’re seeing across the Northwest Territories, and I ask them to work with us to encourage youth to pursue some of these professions.
As a note, some of these professions do have statutory requirements, so it does tie our hands a little bit as far as who we can put into those positions. But I do take the Member’s point. We are going to be working with the Sahtu. I know the CEO in the Sahtu has been running a number of competitions and is looking forward to this new relationship to see if we can have some success through this pilot.
There are some very well-educated, culturally credible people in the Sahtu who can be working with the health board.
I want to ask the Minister, within our own health board there are some people who are either on sick leave or are on extended leave because they are being overworked within the Health department. Some of the workers are even complaining to me that there aren’t proper support mechanisms within the health board. Some of them need to be recognized and be honoured by their experience, and yet they’re being overlooked. There are other people coming to the health board that are taking on the managerial positions, who are actually being trained by these qualified social workers or mental health workers and they’re not given the credence, I guess, or the recognition that they deserve.
When is the department going to look at our own Sahtu homegrown labour force?
As a government, we’re always looking for ways to train local people for local work, and if we have individuals who are in the system who would be appropriate for succession planning purposes, we often look at those individuals. But in some situations, I mean, it is frustrating, and I understand the Member’s frustration. If there is a statutory requirement for a job, when you need that in order to have a licence to perform the duties articulated within the job description, that can be a barrier, which is why we have to look at other alternatives such as this pilot project that we’re talking about in the Sahtu region.
But at the same time, there are programs available to us, such as the Regional Recruitment Program to bring local people into local work. But we are looking at a number of ways to train local people. For example, we are hopefully going to be opening up the long-term care facility in the Norman Wells area in the next year or two, the next two years, and we’re working with the Gwich’in, the Sahtu and the Inuvialuit to arrange training for local people to take on many of those roles.
I hear the Member. I support what the Member is saying. We’re looking for creative solutions. We’re working with the Sahtu. The chief executive officer in the Sahtu is constantly working with the leadership in the communities to try to find ways to encourage youth to pursue careers, and we’re looking for ways to train local people, where possible.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would strongly suggest to the Minister and also to our CEO, go to the homegrown, qualified statutory social workers in our communities, sit down with them and say, “what’s the issue,” because certainly they aren’t being heard. This has been told to me. This is not happening. They’re telling me directly. I’m saying right now in this Assembly to this Minister, if they can do that we would certainly clear up a lot of issues that will put people in good positions within the Sahtu health board. There are some issues that we cannot speak of today in the House that need to be addressed. I’m asking the Minister if he would do this with our health board and CEO.
I’ll pass that message along to the chair of the Sahtu Health and Social Services Authority and have him strongly encourage the CEO to meet with the individuals the Member is referring to.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.
