There’s lots of information that’s

required there. The information I have is that the vacancy rate at Stanton for nurses has been decreasing over the years. I could give him specific information on that.

The overtime hours there.... I think I saw the stats where it’s a little bit less than the national figure, and I could provide the Members with that. Over the years the casual nurses float pool has increased NWT-wide, making it possible for us to use fewer agency nurses.

I could advise the Member that right now at Stanton we do have the stand-by, the float pool nurses, of nine. There has been a suggestion made that perhaps we should look at increasing that to 15. Stanton is actively looking at that option, to see what the optimal level of float pool nurses are, taking into consideration the qualifications required. Because, from my understanding, the float pool nurses need to have intense two-year training to make sure they’re at least trained to work in three

or four areas: ICU, surgery, psychiatry, pediatrics, medicine, obstetrics and such. Obviously, these are not for all the nurses, so we need to get a pool of nurses to be trained for that. At the same time, we need to do a cost-benefit analysis to see what the optimal level of those numbers is. What I want to tell the Member is that I’d be happy to get him all the information on those stats I’ve mentioned already.

There’s no question that the human resource issues at the hospital have been under stress or under a little bit of pressure. I think I’m working toward getting some of the more clear information on that, an action plan on that. Part of the work the public administrator is doing there with the management of Stanton is part of that exercise. Finishing the human resource plan is part of that exercise, and it’s one on which I am confident I could have a full and more clear package of information to go forward to the Standing Committee on Social Programs and other interested Members to address that situation.