Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, my general comments will be centred around what I feel is better monitoring now that we put in place cuts to the regions. Most of these cuts are through the boards. I feel this department should now be monitoring to see where it may be necessary to increase funds again in order to supply good quality health service to the communities. One of the obvious weak points is sufficient funds for the boards to recruit qualified nursing staff for the communities. I think it may even be necessary to ensure the boards have sufficient staff so they can rotate staff due to the remoteness of the communities and insufficient recreational activities and things like that for the nursing staff in the communities. Great consideration should be taken for the amount of work the nurses are required to do especially if there is only one in the community, if they are rotating, somewhere on holiday or other types of leave. It puts a big strain on the staff who is left. They do not really have all that much private time to themselves. They end up with burnout whereby eventually the nurses feel overstressed. In particular in small communities, there are a lot of night activities which, in the end, some of it require hospitalization or treatment by the public. Of course, the nurses are the ones that all this falls on. I think it has to be taken into consideration that these nurses should be allowed to have breaks, even twice a year. If they are satisfied with twice a year breaks, then perhaps we should be looking toward that, allowing the health boards to have sufficient funds to allow for this. It may not be necessary to give them breaks all the way to Edmonton. Even to a larger centre is maybe all that is needed. This could be tied in possibly with training and other functions that would have been funded anyway. I see this as one of the major shortfalls at this present time to ensure there are sufficient funds to the boards for full-fledged nursing staff.
The other thing I would like to see coming out from the boards, and I notice that Stanton Regional Hospital does this, is a newsletter to the public whereby the public has some idea of what is being done in the boards, what services are available, just a general newsletter. I noticed Stanton Regional Hospital was very informative on those particular points, and it was quite well received by the public. I notice that in the opening statement by the Minister, he refers to consultations on the strategic plan and that summary reports of these meetings are being prepared for distribution for participants and boards. I think these reports should be very informative to the MLAs as well. We know what concerns are being expressed by the communities even though we are not present at the particular meetings. I personally would like to see that happening.
The only other point that I can make, Mr. Chairman, is as I stated in questions to the Minister, early in January, I would have like to have seen in place, and the department is working that way now, some form of management group that would do a quarterly or semi-annual review of the boards and how they are progressing and whether or not there are any problems starting to surface. So that there is an early indication and the department has a chance to help out with the communities or with the boards to be able to respond to any concerns that are being expressed in the regions if those concerns are board related and assure that the boards are, in fact, taking into consideration concerns expressed by the communities. I think this would benefit both the boards, the public and the department in general. With that, Mr. Chairman, I am prepared to go through the department's budget. Thank you.