Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the long-term plan of the Government of the Northwest Territories is to train northern nurses and educate northern nurses, which is what we've been doing. We have had quite some success in that area. Although I do recognize that in the smaller communities getting nurses in and nurses to stay is somewhat more problematic. We are looking at restructuring our incentive programs, our bursary programs. We're looking at mentoring. We're looking at trying to get our own northern float pool of nurses, rather than relying on agency nurses from the South. Have a pool of northern nurses that we could use out of Yellowknife or out of Inuvik to go to the communities to cover off. We recognize that we are paying a very significant premium to the agencies for the use of the nurses, and that money is in the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars and could be far better used in other program areas if we could address that issue. So we have a long-term plan. We have northern nurses trained, and we're working with Inuvik to get them enough on-the-ground, practical experience that they can go out and, in fact, be on their own or work in smaller communities with not as much supervision. Thank you.
Michael Miltenberger on Item 20: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
In the Legislative Assembly on February 17th, 2005. See this statement in context.
Item 20: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Item 20: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
February 16th, 2005
Page 1335
See context to find out what was said next.