Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am glad the Members share the concern we have about filling our positions and ensuring that our health centres and our hospitals are fully staffed and fully operational to meet the requirements that are there day by day to deal with the constituents and all that they come forward with from time to time and communities, sicknesses and families.
Mr. Speaker, I think we should, for the record, state that we have hundreds of nursing staff and the nursing profession working every day diligently putting in the hours, the overtime, come back and when they are on call or on time off, they fill positions. We are very appreciative of that type of dedication.
Mr. Speaker, going back a little ways so some of the Members realize this is not an issue just for today, it has been affecting Canada and the Northwest Territories for a long time. When I was last Minister of Health and Social Services in 1999, we instituted a bonus system to try to recognize the nursing fraternity and the years of service they had in the Northwest Territories. At the same time, Mr. Speaker, when community health centres had to be shut down because we didn't have enough nurses, there was a lot of negative feedback from Members that we need those facilities open. So the government-of-the-day tried to find where we could get more nurses from. The opportunity came through someone who had the very good idea -- obviously it's working and it's working to their benefit -- of creating agency nurses. The agency does very well by those because they fill in the short term. Yes, unfortunately, the government and health authorities have relied on that filling portion very heavily. It's cost more money, as the Ministers of Health and Social Services have had to come back to this forum requesting supplementary appropriations and more money to fill the gaps.
Mr. Speaker, we should recognize as well that the Government of the Northwest Territories overall, along with the Department of Health and Social Services, has stepped up to the plate on quite a number of occasions to try to ensure that we are dealing with a nursing shortage in the Northwest Territories.
First, Mr. Speaker, our Student Financial Assistance Program, the best in Canada, the nurses who go through that program and work in the Northwest Territories will have those loans written off for the years of service they work here in the Northwest Territories. That's one of the
pluses we should be expounding on a little more. As well, regarding our bursary program, that's another area that the Government of the Northwest Territories has stepped up to the plate to try to deal with the nursing issue that we face here in the Northwest Territories. The Graduate Nurse Placement Program is something that we work with the nurses who go through our system and we offer the jobs immediately once they have passed their test here in the Northwest Territories.
As well, Mr. Speaker, looking even further in how we go the next step in dealing with the contract nurses or agency nurses. That is something I want to follow up on a little more, but before I get into that I heard comments about hiring nurses and telling them to come and tell them to come and work for them in the dark in 40 below and we will pay you less. Mr. Speaker, just for the record, a nurse at pay level 14 in the Northwest Territories at the starting of the grid is ranked number one in Canada. The maximum level is 16.7 percent higher. That's adjusted to the cost of living. At pay range 15, starting salary is 5.3 percent higher. At our maximum grid, 9.3 percent higher.
So, Mr. Speaker, as the Government of the Northwest Territories we are trying to deal with these issues. We are also faced with some constraints that we have to deal with and I hope Members will work with as we try to deal with this motion, and that is the fact that we have, as the Government of the Northwest Territories, many Members who have been here for awhile and realize that the government had to pay out huge dollars, millions of dollars in pay equity because of a challenge that was faced across the board and that has affected how we pay our employees in the Government of the Northwest Territories. That's an environment we have to work with.
Mr. Speaker, in wanting to see action, hopefully as we go through this, we will have the Members' support as we take the next steps. For example, working with the department already in this area, we want to look to apply a Nurse Agency Relief Program as it was designed. So we will have our own nurse pool in the Northwest Territories.
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We will be able to fill the communities. That is something we are going to start doing and implement the way it was designed. Develop an emergency response team so where communities are short or there's a shortage, we can send a team out to a community that will help deal with the issues. Develop a GNWT nursing agency, again a poll that we can step forward with and have a group of nurses travel to communities and provide the level of service that our residents expect from their health care system. As well, as we have heard on a number of occasions, when we put nursing staff in a facility and they have to fill and work beside a nurse of another specialty, that can create its own problems. So we are looking at re-describing nursing positions that fill a multi-purpose unit and adjusting that area which would help alleviate that.
As well, more in the small communities, we have to maximize the Community Health Nurse Development Program. That's where we take community health nurses and under-fill them to provide more training, so they can do the job in the community. That's another way we are going to be stepping up to the plate and doing that.
So I hope as we implement this, there is some recognition that as the Government of the Northwest Territories, we have stepped up to the plate when it comes to some of the salary issues, when it comes to the graduation program. We no longer continue to search. We continue to search for the nursing fraternity when they come out of colleges in the South, but we went one step up in the Northwest Territories. We, with the college and Education, Culture and Employment and the Department of Health and Social Services, brought the program to the Northwest Territories and then started our own through the Aurora College system Nursing Program and they get their degrees here in the Northwest Territories and we offer them a job when they come out the door.
Mr. Speaker, we are doing a job in trying to make a difference. We will continue to do that with the commitment and support of Members of this House. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
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