Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, earlier this sitting I had asked questions about physician staffing in the Northwest Territories. We learned that nine physicians have left since fiscal year 2023-2024, and now we're hearing that 64 percent of physicians in the Northwest Territories are planning on leaving. This is a crisis to put it mildly, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, what is the Minister's plan to reverse this trend and bring either new physicians here or -- or bring new physicians to the Northwest Territories and keep the ones we currently have? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Range Lake. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the NTHSSA and the department, you know, they work closely together and they work with their partners with the medical association on, you know -- and I'll highlight an article today that the medical association is doing a lot of things that they feel that they can try to, you know, work with their staff; however, turnover in physicians throughout the Northwest Territories, historically, you know, has happened but this, again -- and I highlight this is not something that is isolated to the Northwest Territories. This is something that my colleagues, health Ministers in jurisdictions across Canada, are struggling with. There is some work being done at the national level to identify -- as I recently was at the FPT, and we had this discussion on data. So we actually know what the vacancy rates are in physicians and primary care physicians and family physicians, in specialty areas, nurse practitioners, registered nurses, all of the fields that we are currently seeing that we have vacancies in. And, Mr. Speaker, one of the things that they've identified through gathering that data is the amount of positions that -- or amount of spaces in schools that are producing -- that are college students and, you know, going into. The graduates of all of those programs across Canada are not even enough to fill those gaps with the numbers of people that average retire through every year. So there is a national plan on looking at how can we open up more seats across Canada, how can we use that data to improve, you know, providing more training, more health professionals across Canada, because that's the area that we're struggling right now across Canada in. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, that's a great assessment of the problem but we're looking for solutions, and the Minister mentioned the work the association's doing. But what's the work that the department is doing for recruitment and retention of physicians? She mentioned university spots, there's too few. Are we funding new university spots? Are we expanding the residency program? There's a ton of things we do that are actually very helpful that we've heard from physicians are useful. Are we going to expand those programs? Like, when are solutions going to come forward? We all know the problems. They're loud and clear in our ridings. They're loud and clear in our hospitals and clinics. So what are the solutions the Minister's bringing to the table? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, one of the solutions that we are doing is we are actually doing the health sustainability system review. We need to find out what our core systems are and the dollars that we are getting in that -- you know, and if there's changes to our system that are going to support our core programs to make them more robust and to be able to do the things that we need to do to attract more physicians or health care workers within the system, we need to get that work done. That is the big part of the work that needs to get done because we have a system that is constantly, you know, moving. It's a 365-day system that never stops within health and the other work that we're doing is we're now looking at models of care in the small communities, and so that way we're looking at primary care reform. You know, we're looking at ways that other health care professionals can do and work at the scope of their -- like, their profession. And that takes the burden off the physicians to do the things that they can do. You know, we've heard from physicians what their thoughts are in primary care reform. We're working with them. The PA is working with them to continue this work. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Final supplementary. Member from Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in 2023-2024, we lost a family physician, an obstetrician, a pediatrician. These are frontline physicians that provide primary care services that families need, that Northerners need. I get the public administrator is busy doing this work. We haven't seen that plan. So I'm going to turn again to this: What's the public administrator's role in this, and when are we allowed to find out about it? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned before, we will be having -- offering a briefing to standing committee within the early first quarter of the next fiscal year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
