Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, too often residents are receiving notices of physician shortages in Hay River. And without physicians in the community, proper health care cannot be dispensed. This may mean turning away those who are in need of emergency care, routine appointments, palliative care, detox services, and mental health services. Mr. Speaker, it is no secret that the community of Hay River is having issues with staffing of physicians for the Hay River Regional Health Centre. This issue has been ongoing for some time and continues to affect timely access to healthcare and degrades the quality of services expected by residents.
Mr. Speaker, the catchment area for the Hay River Health and Social Services Authority includes a population of approximately 5,000 people. Canada has an average of 2.41 physicians per 1,000 population a statistic that would translate into approximately 12 physicians for Hay River. At present, we have one locum in the community when, in fact what is needed as a minimum to provide proper and timely healthcare services, is 5.6 FTE positions.
Mr. Speaker, Hay River is fortunate to have dedicated permanent healthcare staff in place; however, without physicians and a full staff complement of healthcare workers, we may well see many of those employees leave to seek employment elsewhere. Working with limited physician support places stress on staff and management. When I say stress, I am talking about frontline staff and management working in an environment where they are unable to provide consistent, quality, and timely healthcare to residents.
These frontline workers are hearing and feeling the frustration of residents who are seeking timely access to a system that appears to be crumbling around them. Mr. Speaker, except for physicians, the Hay River HSSA recruits all other medical staff. But for some reason, and consistently, Hay River is without a full complement of physicians or, for that matter, any physicians at all. This is placing residents' health and life at risk. Although we welcome locums, our reliance on their services may result in their unfamiliarity with patient files, local cultural differences, medical staff, and processes, all which may affect one's diagnosis, treatment, and followup visits.
Change is needed in how physicians are recruited at HRHSSA. After all, we have a department with a $600 million budget whose sole responsibility is that of providing and delivering timely and quality healthcare to residents and with that budget, we are failing those residents in Hay River. Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Hay River South. Members' statements. Member for Tu NedheWiilideh.
