Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the issue raised by my colleague about recognizing the contributions of his existing staff is a very important one and one where we have invested a considerable amount of time and money as of late, regarding both doctors and nurses, but we've tried to expand it to all allied health professionals, as well as social workers. We've put more money into long-term care. We are putting money into alcohol and drugs. We've committed to doing the review, which is underway right now, of the classifications of nurses to make sure they are adequately classified and that their skills, especially of some of the higher trained nurses, are recognized in OR and ICU and those types of things.
The recruitment and retention unit that has been in place has been somewhat controversial. There have been a lot of questions about how it's structured and how effective it has been. Recruitment and retention, when I became Minister, was identified as the number one issue by all the health authorities. What we have underway right now, as part of our comprehensive human resource strategy development, is a review both of the human resource services currently provided at the authority level and as well the structure of the current recruitment and retention unit. There is a clear sense among the members of the Joint Leadership Council that the current structure that we have had in place for the last number of years is not as effective as it should be. That there is possibly an over-concentration of resources at the headquarters level that might be better used if they were redeployed to authorities.
One of the problems we have come across as we have looked at this carefully is that there are about seven different levels of services that are currently provided in the human resource sections and divisions of the authorities. There is no clear rationale as to why or how the particular human resource services were developed as they were. So as we look at possibly realigning resources, we are also trying to come to grips with what would be a standard level of service that should be provided in the human resource sections of the authorities, so there is some consistency. So we are looking at that particular area. With all the most recent changes in adding money for training, as well as some of the other initiatives that we have undertaken in job reclassification, looking at making job offers to all the student nurses coming out of Aurora College, we have taken what we think are significant steps to start addressing this issue more effectively. We can, as the Member requested, get him numbers, but I can tell him that we have made job offers to all, I think it's 23 nursing graduates, that have come out of the college this year and we intend to keep making those job offers. We have set up increased mentoring. We have set up new nursing positions. We have tried to expand the number of nursing entry level positions, both at Stanton, as well as at the authorities in Inuvik, Hay River, Fort Smith and Simpson. We have found a home for the nurse practitioners. We are trying to adjust that program right now as well so that by this coming fall, we are ready to advertise for a second intake of nurse practitioners, which are a key component of the collaborative practices and integrative service delivery model that we are trying to work towards as a system.
So I take my colleague's concern about the recruitment and retention unit and how it was structured and we have been moving to make that whole process much more effective and much more collaborative with the authorities and the department. Thank you.