Yesterday I think I touched on
this when I stated, and I want to state again, that the nurse practitioner program is very important to us. As Ms. Bisaro mentioned yesterday, hopefully it’s more than a six-month situation at Stanton. I want to make it clear that what we know happened at Stanton should not be construed as a reflection or any sort of…. It’s hard to explain. It’s a situation that is really internal to the operation of the hospital in that those two positions were put there to be incorporated into the operation. That’s the understanding of all the authorities.
All the authorities are very proactive, and they’re open to hiring as many NPs as possible. We have lots of NPs in the Yellowknife Health Authority; we have an NP placed in Fort McPherson; we have one trained and placed in Fort Resolution. This is the way to go for the future, and you’ll see there is a lot more money being put toward training our nurse practitioners and placing them.
The difficulty a few NP positions at Stanton ran into was with the fact that the hospital setting was not as conducive to accommodating positions in a way that they are able to do in more primary clinic settings, such as the Yellowknife Health or in other regional centres. If we are to continue, and we are going to continue to rely on NP positions to enhance our services and to lessen the burden on the medical practitioners, it’s incumbent on our operators to use these NPs and to incorporate their
work into the practice. It’s not supposed to mean extra services, but it’s a service that would replace some of the nursing positions or take on some of the work that is not typically done by nurses.
I just want to advise the Members here that the situation that happened at Stanton is an anomaly. It should not in any way reflect negatively on the commitment this government has, and that I have as Minister, to continue to pursue and support the NP
program.