Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There is an ongoing effort and process to hire as many nurses as possible so that we reduce the vacancies, reduce the use of locum nurses wherever possible. All the health authorities have made some progress in that area. Since January we have hired 58 nurses within all of our health authorities. Currently we have about 42 positions out of 60 filled in the communities. We do have stats that show the use of agency nurses has declined considerably.
We do understand the nursing profession is in constant stress. It’s a national and international market. Our latest stats show that the average overtime — down at the Stanton Hospital, for example — is about two hours less than the national standard. We understand we need to continue to work on that, and we believe we are making some progress.