Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise here today to talk a little bit about the sustainability of our health care system in the Northwest Territories and specifically about the physician shortage that we currently face. Members of the Social Programs Committee have had a recent presentation from the Northwest Territories Medical Association and we discussed the number of physicians that we currently have in the Northwest Territories and what it would require for us to get up to what they consider a full complement of physicians. Currently across the Territories, we have 51 physicians. The numbers from the NWTMA would indicate that we need somewhere in the neighbourhood of 80 to 85 physicians just to provide basic services in the North.
Mr. Speaker, it is important to remember that that is simply talking about the number of physicians we need in the larger centres who would then fly into the smallest and remote communities to provide service, so we are not talking about permanent physicians even in the smallest communities. If we were to go there, we would need even further numbers.
Mr. Speaker, one number that is often analyzed when we look at jurisdictions in Canada to see whether or not we have adequate numbers of physicians is the national physician to population ratio. The average in Canada is 185 physicians to 100,000. Mr. Speaker, we have the worst ratio in the country in the Northwest Territories at 92 to 100,000 people. The problem with not having enough physicians is that the ones who are here are drastically overworked, Mr. Speaker, and that generally means that they are not willing to stick around very long with those kinds of conditions.
Mr. Speaker, locally in Yellowknife, we did move from fee for service to salary, which has provided some help to physicians but it has not seemed to help us in the area of recruitment numbers. We have a lot of work to do here, Mr. Speaker. I know the NWTMA provided the Department of Health with an MD resource plan and as of yet, has had no official response to this plan. They delivered it last February, I believe, so today in question period, I will have questions for the Minister of Health and will specifically ask him when he plans to respond to this resource plan. Thank you.
-- Applause