Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in February of this year, my friend, the Minister of Health and Social Services, had mentioned that she was going to raise the issue of agency nursing at the national level, in particular with the Minister the federal Minister of Health. So can she report back on what efforts she's made? I note that other provinces have now committed to banning or severely reducing the use of agency nurses. Where are we at? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Range Lake. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I was able to meet with the Minister of Health. I attended the meeting, alongside two members from the Council of Leaders. We discussed the issues that related to the Northwest Territories. Agency nurse was one of them. This is a discussion that is continuing at the federal level, and there is a Ministers' meeting that will be happening I think in the fall time and that is, again, on that agenda. But I would just like to make also aware that right now in the Northwest Territories, we do only have five agency nurses, which are working in obstetrics right now, to make sure that we can still provide those services in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it costs the government $4.4 million last year in private agency nurses. That's equivalent to 31 positions. So I'm not sure if it's seven agency nurses to 31 public nurses, but that's a staggering ratio and the amount of money we're spending on these. So we need to put a stop to it. We need to wean ourselves off this addiction to private agency nurses. They're not working for our staff. They're not working for Northerners. I appreciate we want to keep the lights on in obstetrics, but there must be other solutions.
So can the Minister bring forward a plan working with the authority on staffing OBS without the use of private agency nurses, and can she bring it forward tomorrow? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, yes, I can say that we are changing the staffing model in obstetrics, which is being done to support the obstetric nurses as per some of the concerns that have been brought up over the years. And, Mr. Speaker, you know, when we talk about the cost that agency nurses have cost, the cost that it cost the government for closing down the obstetric unit for two months was $1 million. So if we were to close it down, that's 700 births in the Northwest Territories annually in the obstetrics unit in Yellowknife, those people would have to travel. Two months it cost us a million. So a year, and putting those families, displacing those families, if we don't come up with you know, if we can't staff it, that is a priority too. You know, we have to look at all different sides of it. And that's my job to be able to do that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we hired 84 nurses frontline nurses last year and of those 84, 69 left. Recruitment's become a revolving door. We must have a solution. We must staff these wards. So OBS worked just fine until it stopped working. What was working at OBS that's not working now; can the Minister tell us. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, like I said in the House before, we haven't used agency nurses. We've been able to recruit, retain. You know, the salary of nurses hasn't changed. And so the other territories and provinces are starting to compete better. There's lots of different things that are in place that is challenging us to recruit. COVID, many people left the health care field. That is the biggest impact on our health care system. And we're still trying to recover from that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Final supplementary. Member from Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, just for if my arithmetic's right, that's 15 net frontline positions that we were able to recruit from last year. And I think that's a shame. We need to do something. I'm going to propose, again, that the Minister work on phasing out agency nurses within a period of time, so let's throw a date out there. Will the Minister agree to phase out agency nurses by the end of 2026? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I will not commit to anything that would impact our patients' health. And so if there are ways to get around this that we can increase our staffing and our workflow and maybe the changes that we're making in obstetrics right now will help to better. But it's not just obstetrics, you know. There's other areas in our small communities that we are struggling to get health CHNs, so community health nurses. Those health centres shut down, it's going to impact those communities greatly. You know, so there's so many things that we need to look at before we just discontinue the use of agency nurses. I'd rather not use them. I'd rather not use them. I'd rather use that money to keep it in the territory. And, you know, if there's more nurses that want to train in obstetrics or in community health nurses, you know, that's something that we're trying to develop. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Oral questions. Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.
