Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my question today is for the Minister of Health and Social Services.
Mr. Speaker, last sitting Members raised a number of concerns and passed a motion regarding the health care system, and a lot of the concerns that were raised were about workplace morale among nurses, doctors, health care workers in general. And I would note that with the system sustainability unit and the new public administrator, it's not really clear if morale issues are actually being addressed by those initiatives. So can the Minister clarify for the House who is tasked with improving morale in the health care system, and what are they doing to help our nurses and doctors? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Frame Lake. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as the Member has stated, you know, this is not something that comes to a surprise to this House. We've heard it on the floor many, many times. It is in the mandate of the public administrator to ensure that the NTHSSA is dealing with this morale issue. I also took it upon myself, and now accompanying with me within the NTHSSA, the PA attends all of the -- along with the CEO and the COOs of the region, we have completed -- sorry, we've completed TCSA. We've completed Stanton. We've completed Fort Smith. We have a whole stretch of regions that we'll be doing town halls with staff in March and into April to making sure we're hitting every region and as well as the operations area within the NTHSSA. And all of that feedback is part of the work that we're all working towards ensuring that staff are being heard and that there are going to be, you know -- like, from the recommendations and the concerns brought forward, there will be actions on those for the managers, the CEO to deal with. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Minister for that answer. And so, Mr. Speaker, I understand that workplace morale can be a bit of a difficult thing to track and to measure. So I'm just curious has the department thought or the Minister thought about how she's going to track progress on this issue? Are they establishing measures? Are they, you know, taking a baseline to understand from staff where things are at now and where things are going? How are they going to be measuring success on this important issue in our health care system. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, you know, with the work that's ongoing in the next, you know, little while, I think that the last employment engagement satisfactory survey that was done from staff that is done every two years, that will be a tool that is measured. But I also -- you know, I think that one of the areas is all managers and staff have to take ownership of making sure that they're bringing their concerns forward. And this is something that I've said in the town halls with staff is that if they're -- you know, if they're bringing the issues forward and they're not being heard, we've heard from COOs to say that, you know, make sure that it's coming to the COOs if you're not being heard as a group, as a department, as a -- you know, as an area so that way that we are aware. There's times where the senior leadership is not aware of some of these things. And some of those things that cause morale issues could be small fixes, but it's actually going up the chain of command to ensure that voices are heard. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Final supplementary. Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, you know, one of the ways that we're able to track this sort of thing and determine for ourselves and be engaged with our constituents is to see what's being brought forward. So does the Minister or the public administrator have any plans in place to establish some kind of a plan or list a set of actions that are going to be taken and, you know, maybe a timeline for how things will go down so that staff can see, you know, what actions are being taken, how their concerns are being heard and actioned? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I had mentioned in this House, you know, the PA is working with the leadership of NTHSSA right now. But when I mentioned about the town halls, those town halls and bringing those concerns forward, there are internal actions for each of those COOs to go back to their staff to work through some of those issues that were brought forward. So I know that we've only -- like I said, mentioned, we've only done two or three of three different regions now, and we have the rest of the regions to go there. And I encourage those staff to come out and voice their -- you know, their concerns. Not just their concerns, but what's working so that we don't change the things that are working. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Oral questions. Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.
