Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’d like to thank the Minister and her staff for being here with us at this late hour in the day. I appreciate their time.

I wanted to start off by thanking the Minister for her hard work on the dementia facility here in Yellowknife. As well, some thanks have to go out to the former Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Roland, and Mr. Miltenberger, who played a role in getting the project where it is today.

Applause.

It’s high time the Northwest Territories had a service here in the NWT that will cater to those elders with Alzheimer’s and dementia. I think it’s long overdue. Again, thanks.

I also wanted to thank — I know Ms.

Bisaro

mentioned it — the Minister as well for listening when it came to the nurse practitioner positions here in Yellowknife. I know it’s a short-term fix, but thank you for your flexibility and your ability to listen to our concerns. We appreciate that.

I thank the Minister. She is in a very unenviable position, being the Minister of Health and Social Services. Our jurisdiction, obviously, is not alone with the rising costs of health care. In fact, we probably see it a little bit more than other jurisdictions, given our geographic location in northern Canada. We always have to, as Mr.

Abernethy said, find new ways of doing

business and make sure that every dollar we’re spending is spent effectively. That’s why I sometimes come across as maybe giving the Minister a bit of a hard time on the accountability side of things and what’s happening at Stanton. I don’t want to see us wasting or losing out on opportunities to spend money more effectively and more wisely. That’s the reason I raise so many concerns about Stanton and its operation. I don’t want to see any more ward closures there. I don’t want to see any more positions lost at that hospital.

The Telehealth coordinator: arguably, that position is going to save us money, so why the department would look at cutting there…. I’m not quite sure, again, that I understand the rationale for cutting a position that, like I said, arguably is going to save us money. There was talk earlier, too, of the nurse in the OR. There are rumblings that there might be more layoffs or affected employees at Stanton. Again, I don’t know if we need to be looking at that.

I mentioned earlier in this session that nurses out at that hospital are working alongside the locum nurses, and I think there still is too much of a reliance on locum nurses. I think HR should be involved, too, in trying to open up positions. I think we should be increasing the indeterminate float pool at that hospital so that we do have the ability to hire more nurses that are living here.

We let our nurses go, and then we hire them back and we fly them back. To me, that’s taking a step backward. We want to ensure that our nurses are living here and they’re happy. I don’t know if that’s necessarily the case out at Stanton today.

Ms. Bisaro also talked about the Stanton master plan, and I’m not sure how we would, or why we would, embark on spending millions and millions of capital dollars at that facility without a master plan. To me, it’s ludicrous. We shouldn’t even be thinking about that. That master plan should be the blueprint by which we go forward and we get a plan for how the hospital is going to be run.

I’ve had lots of issues with how it’s been turned into an office building, and we’re putting too much administration in there. That’s very expensive office space. I think, when we’re looking at the master plan, we have to ensure that it is exactly what it was designed to be, and that’s a hospital, not a glorified office building.

I disagree with Ms. Bisaro a little bit on some of her comments, because I believe we have to use the Minister: she’s our conduit to Stanton. I mean, we’ve got no other avenue. We have to go through the Minister. She’s accountable to us. The questions are going to come, and somebody has to answer the bell when it comes to money and accountability issues at that hospital.

We’ve had many discussions about the management there. I won’t waste any more time here, talking about the management there, but I do think there needs to be changes.

Again, I know the Minister, and again, she was on this side of the House not too long ago, raising the same issues, talking about the same things. I’m glad to see that she’s in her position, and I have a lot of faith in your ability, Ms. Minister, to deliver on running a first-rate health care system here in the Northwest Territories.

I’m glad to see Mr. Cummings is there as well. I

know he’s got a tremendous amount of

background experience in the area too, so I’m happy to see him there.

You know, for the first time in a long time, I think there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and I think we can get there if we work together and share information and come up with a way to do business better.

That’s about it, Mr. Chairman, for me. Again, I’ve got a number of questions as we go through the detail, as well, but I wanted to thank the Minister and her staff again for being with us tonight. Thank you.