Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Minister of health and social services.
Mr. Speaker, in February of this year, the Minister indicated that the midwifery program implementation was being held up by staffing challenges. Can the Minister provide this House with an update on recruitment for the midwifery program? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Minister responsible for Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there is a shortage nationally and internationally of midwifery candidates which is hobbling our efforts to fully staff our program. That doesn't diminish our commitment, and we are still actively recruiting for midwives wherever the program exists. So to be more specific, the territorial manager position is vacant and currently open for competition. The midwifery specialist position is filled and will focus and support the territorial program. Fort Smith, one out of three positions are filled so the services are limited. Hay River, two out of 3.75 fulltime equivalent positions are staffed. And this includes the services that that staff there includes the services provided to Fort Resolution with visits that occur every six weeks. Yellowknife, one out of four positions are filled. And this position has been redeployed to support stabilization of staffing in Fort Smith because there are alternatives to midwife use in Yellowknife. So in short we are very short staffed, but we continue to advertise to fill all the vacant positions. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister speak to whether or not the health and social services midwifery recruitment team is looking at fostering relationships with midwifery training institutions to create practicumlike opportunities here in the Northwest Territories? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the health and social services system doesn't have any formal relationships of the type that the Member is talking about. But I think there's room for us to be proactive there because we do, in fact, welcome students to do practicums in our health and social services system and that, of course, extends to midwifery as well. So I think that there's room for us to perhaps create a more solid relationship with one of the training facilities to make sure that we have a steady supply of students. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Minister for that as well. I know that this is not, you know, an area where we'd need to reinvent the wheel. The Northwest Territories does this with other health care positions and other jurisdictions do it with midwifery. So I appreciate the Minister's support on that one.
Mr. Speaker, I'm wondering what work is being done to create opportunities and support certification processes in the Northwest Territories for internationallytrained midwives that might be interested in moving to the Northwest Territories? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as with other health professions, we don't have the capacity to evaluate international credentials to decide whether they meet the registration requirements in our jurisdiction. So what we count on is that internationally trained health care providers are licensed in another province and once that happens, they're eligible for registration in the NWT. So we depend on the greater capacity of the provinces to assess their credentials and then once they've been assessed and found to be adequate, then of course we would register them here in the NWT as well. The business about evaluating international credentials is something that the whole health and social services system across the country is looking at because it's a very uneven approach as things stand now. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to start off by acknowledging that health and social services has a very full legislative, regulatory, and policy creation slate. But I'm wondering if the Minister can provide an update to this House as to what timeline the department is working toward to complete the midwifery regulations? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, work has started on creating midwifery regulations under the Health and social services Professions Act. And that work will produce a modernized framework, including looking at the scope of practice, which I know the Member spoke about in her statement, to align with the scope of practice in other Canadian jurisdictions.
There is now an advisory committee with representatives from the Midwives Association of the Northwest Territories who are meeting with the department to do this work. So drafting instructions are being developed now, and it's anticipated that the regulations will come into force in 2025. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Great Slave.
