Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. First, what is the Minister's response to the NWT Medical Association's recommendation to expand the Family Medicine Residency Program from two to four residents per year? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife North. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, you know, I recognize the importance of the family residency program. And this program began it was launched in 2020 and it provides a way to train and retain potential candidates for permanent family medicine positions in the NWT. Four residents have now graduated from this program. Two newest residents started on July 1st, 2023. However, I do agree with this program and, you know, but when we were taking in account as to ensuring the number of residents that we can support and provide expanding their scope in our facilities, we have to make sure that we can provide that to each of the residency. So I'll leave it at that. I'll let her finish asking questions.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So given that this recommendation is coming from the NWT Medical Association, which is made up of physicians operating here in the NWT, who would have an intimate knowledge of their capacity to, you know, supervise and train medical residents, does the Minister believe that it could be realistic to aim for an expansion of this program by the last year of this Assembly, 2027? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm not going to commit to that on the floor today as I'm unable to be able to confirm whether we could meet that funding and clinical training requirements as I mentioned in my previous comments. But I'm committed to continue to work with what we can do to expand this program, and if there's ways that we can find other funding to fund this, if we can support it within our system, then I'm always willing to commit to continuing that work. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate that, and one positive aspect is that the program is partly funded by the University of Alberta and other partners, so I look forward to the Minister's analysis on that.
One final question here, does the Minister see any opportunities to transfer lessons learned and the successes from the Family Medicine Residency Program to offer additional on the job training and residency opportunities within our health care system? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, you know, I and I really want to I appreciate the Member for bringing this forward in a positive way because this is a good thing for the Northwest Territories. But I would also like to recognize this is just one program. There are a number of areas that we have been doing increasing health practitioners as well. So educating registered nurses in the Northwest Territories for over 20 years, we've been graduating nurses, licensed practical nurses, personal support workers, ophthalmology technologists. And we hope to again soon to be able to bring back social work, educating social workers in the system. But I believe there's an opportunity to continue to grow our ability as to educate health and social services professionals in the Northwest Territories, and I continue to be working with my colleague to ensure that, you know, we can continue to support these things, because these are ideal for the Northwest Territories. You know, when we work together to be able to train people in the Northwest Territories, we're more likely to keep them in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Oral questions. Member from Great Slave.
