Mr. Speaker, I'm tired. It's been a very long and exhausting week with serious debates in the House that have taken a lot out of me and my colleagues. Last night, after an extended sitting in the Ledge, I was looking forward to heading home, snuggling in with my cats, and putting on some escapist TV to help myself unwind. However this is not how my evenings seem to go these days. Rather, my evenings are spent speaking with constituents and residents over the impending staffing crisis at Stanton Territorial Hospital.
This week in the House, I have tried to ask questions of the Health Minister as to how we've found ourselves in this situation, referencing questions I sent her in the spring asking what the department was doing to address the increasing burnout of nursing staff I was hearing about. Fast forward seven months, and those concerns and the warning I raised have now come to fruition.
The Minister indicated this was something that could not have been prevented, citing high wages and requests for vacation as the reason our OBS ward was being shut down, disrupting numerous families across the territory.
I ask, how could this be a surprise, or not preventable, given healthcare staffing was something we discussed over two years ago and felt was an important enough issue to include it in our priorities as an Assembly.
Healthcare workers have told me of survey fatigue and a lack of faith that any further surveys will have any effect on their working conditions. Conditions that include an increased workload due to COVID, that they no longer have the opportunity to take any breaks while on shift, or even have time to take a sip of water. An issue I may add is further compounded by the ridiculous requirement that the containers used meet a certain specification. I have to ask myself, with my knowledge of cronyism in the North, is someone's relative out there who sells these bottles and they are getting a cut? Or Otherwise I can't see any rationale for treating our professional staff like children.
Issues at Stanton have been long in the making, transferring right along with the staff into the new building preferential treatment of locums, a toxic workplace and management, and inadequate staffing long predate COVID which is a favourite excuse for this Cabinet when they fail to perform.
Now is the time for this government to take action and do what is right by our healthcare staff and for the people of this territory, and stop making excuses for their inaction. Mr. Speaker, I will have questions for the Minister of HR as I am hoping that I will actually get some answers today.
Thank you, Member for Great Slave. Members' statements. Member for Monfwi.
