Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Later today my honourable friend from Yellowknife Centre will be tabling a survey authored collaboratively between us about health care experience in the Northwest Territories. This work expands on the joint town hall that we undertook in the summer attended by over a hundred people. I invite the House and the public to read the survey and note that while 59 percent of respondents rated their quality of care as excellent, only 25 percent were satisfied with their overall health care experience. Here's what some of them had to say, quote:
Stop saying it's a staffing issue for all health care and properly staff. You have managers who have no idea how to manage. They never listen to the staff who do the work.
The whole health care system is falling apart. There are no appointments available and when you have one, you feel that it's a rushed appointment and you're not listened to. The doctors are burnt out. How are we spending money on all these locums and not on our employees.
The individual health care workers are great, but, quote, for people with complex health concerns, there seems to be no connective tissue with holding the overall system together and providing health care in an informed and coordinated way.
Mr. Speaker, if it wasn't clear, our health care system is on life support. The constant churn of locums and temporary staff have completely evaporated continuity of care in the Northwest Territories. The government has structured the health care system in such a way that it competes with itself for staff. Workers are leaving permanent positions to become locums to do less work for the same pay. And who could blame them? Look at the perks. Free housing, free rental cars, no paperwork to complete, live anywhere in the country. And there's more, fly for free and get enough Aeroplan points to get as many as ten free flights a year.
Mr. Speaker, the GNWT for some reason has optimized the health care to be utterly dependent on a fly-in culture that is making health care outcomes worse and staff retention next to impossible. Where there were once six-month contracts, now they are measured in weeks or days. To quote one health care worker, it's a free for all. Mr. Speaker, you cannot have a thriving health care system in a community if your nurses and doctors don't live in the community. What is happening in the NWT is not what's happening elsewhere in Canada despite what the Minister and government may say. No one will help us but ourselves to solve this problem and if the Minister cannot get the job done, then it's time for her to step aside for someone who will. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Range Lake. Members' statements. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
