Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Item 6, oral questions. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question also goes to the Minister responsible for Health and Social Services. I would like to raise an issue that was raised often during my campaign, which has to do with the shortage of doctors in Yellowknife and more specifically, a recruitment and retention plan.

As I recall, Mr. Speaker, there was an injection of multi-million dollars to retain and hire doctors and nurses last year. I wonder if the Minister could inform this Assembly as to what effect the injection of cash has had. Specifically, how many doctors and nurses and other health care professionals were we able to hire with that money? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Health and Social Services, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe the multi-million dollar injection the Member refers to is the $3 million for registered nurses under the recruitment and retention strategy. I am pleased to report that from January 1999 to January 2000, the vacancy rate for nurses dropped from 18.4 percent to 6.9 percent.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Supplementary, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am happy to hear that result. I wonder if the Minister could tell me what communities are under staffed at the moment in terms of regional health staff? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Health and Social Services, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have figures as of January 7, 2000, on the vacancy rates for nurses and social workers by health board. It refers to full-time positions. It has numbered positions and percentage of vacancy rates. This is fairly extensive because it includes registered nurses and social workers.

I would be happy to provide the Member with this most recent information. We continue to track this on an ongoing basis. This information is of January 7, 2000. If there is anything more recent than that, I could also provide that. It is rather long to read that out. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Supplementary, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It makes Ordinary Members' jobs very difficult when the Minister comes so prepared.

-- Laughter

I appreciate that the Minister is going to give me that information. I am assuming that there are some sections in there where there are shortages of health care professionals. I do not assume that every community in the Northwest Territories is fully staffed with health care professionals. I wonder if the Minister could inform us as to what she is doing to address those communities where there is still a shortage of health care professionals? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Health and Social Services, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, although the workforce has stabilized right now with nurses and social workers, our efforts in the department for recruitment and retention continue. There are a number of initiatives and activities that we have undertaken to address this issue and to ensure that it remains stabilized.

There is quite a list of them. Again, I do not know how much of this you would want me to list off. I will just highlight a few of them here.

One of the things of which we are very proud of is the effort with Aurora College in terms of training a northern workforce. We have had very good success of the expansion of educational opportunities for people.

An interesting idea came up yesterday with the Northwest Territories Health Care Association, and that is perhaps looking at women. In particular, women who may have raised a family in their younger days, and now their families are grown and they may be looking at re-entering or entering the workforce for the first time. We were thinking that would be an interesting group to target as well. They may want to attend college. We usually think of college recruitment in terms of young people coming straight out of high school.

There are quite a number of initiatives here. Again, I could provide this list to the Member if she would like to have it. Everything from support to the people that are in the workplace already. There is also the development of a website so they can have an interactive communication between health care workers. The establishment of a three nurse educator consultant position to support nurses that are employed by the nine boards of health. That is another area where we provide support to these workers to ensure they are able to do the best of their ability. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Final supplementary, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Health and Social Services, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The $3 million that was targeted specifically for registered nurses was a one-time arrangement. It was like a supplement to the wage of the nurses that were already here. It was also a signing bonus for those nurses we were hiring on in the Northwest Territories. It was targeted at registered nurses because that is where the highest percentage of vacancy existed. I think that now the situation has stabilized. I do not believe there will be ongoing specific funding for registered nurses. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Item 6, oral questions. The honourable Member for Yellowknife South, Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question today is also for the Minister responsible for the Department of Health and Social Services. One of the initiatives the Department of Health and Social Services has that really interests me is the potential use of Telehealth in the Northwest Territories. During the interim appropriation process, I was disappointed to hear that progress on this important initiative was being hindered by a lack of available bandwidth.

Can the Minister indicate whether she has made an arrangement for her officials to meet with Education, Culture and Employment and Ardicom on this important issue?

Thank you, Mr. Bell. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Health and Social Services, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, during the consideration of the Department of Health under the Interim Appropriations Bill, I did commit to coordinating a meeting between Education, Culture and Employment and Ardicom, and I believe the Minister of Finance, to look at this. This meeting has not taken place yet. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Supplementary, Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister tell us when we can expect this meeting?

Thank you, Mr. Bell. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Health and Social Services, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it would appear my Cabinet colleagues would be available to have a meeting to deal with this specific issue next week. We could report back to Members at the next sitting of the Legislature. Thank you.