Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just

want to be clear, if the Minister can provide the information to ensure whether we are training more NP nurses than we have available positions.

It’s not a question of whether I support training or not. That should never be put into question, because I do. The principle, really, is value for money. If we don’t have positions for them to fill, it draws the question as to how big of a resource pool of nurse practitioners do we need.

The other thing is these temporary positions we create and fill with newly trained nurse practitioners. Are they limited by their credentials and experience? When they go into that and then they’re placed back into their old jobs, do they lose some of that? Because I’ve been informed, whether it’s a fact or not, they lose some of their operating credentials if they’re not left in a nurse practitioner position.

Mr. Chairman, we have positions

for every NP we have in the Territories, and we’ll have more coming, whether we have positions for them. As I said earlier, we may not be able to place them exactly where they want them. It’s like any other northern grads we train. Whether we support lawyers to be trained down south, or doctors, engineers, plumbers.... We, as a government, are committed to hiring these and offering them positions. It’s just that they may not all be able to work at the hospital, or in the exact section they would like to, because you have to respect the right of the operator of the hospital to place them.

I just want to say, Mr. Chairman, there are nine vacant positions in the Territories for NPs.

The question is still outstanding: do

they lose their credentials if they’re not in a practitioner position?

Yes.

Further, Mr. Hawkins?

Then what’s the plan in the

department for those people who come to the end of their term and there are no existing nurse practitioner positions? Is it a plan to convert existing RN positions into nurse practitioner positions, as primary care, obviously? And if there is, what’s the cost to do a transition from an RN to an NP position?

For a response,

Mr. Cummings.

How long has this been going on, in

the sense of this training process? Have we lost any who had to return to their home position per se? When I say “Have we lost any,” I mean: how many have we lost who have gone back to being RNs, unable to practice as an NP, and how many have left the North because they couldn’t find an NP position? Furthermore, what protects our investment on that, if we’re training nurses who won’t go to a community, and there are no existing NP positions they will take and they end up leaving?

The nurse practitioner program

in the Northwest Territories has been in place for 11 years. We have seen much progress in Yellowknife. The positions I think the Member may be speaking to, at Stanton.... Those NPs were informed of the

fact that there were no permanent positions there. I think it’s incumbent on the employer and employee to work together to see if those positions could be re-profiled to make them available.

If not, as I stated earlier, we as a government want to accommodate NPs to be employed in our Territories, but we couldn’t guarantee employment in a specific setting, in a specific office, doing specific things that specific NPs feel they ought to do. That would be enormous and unreasonable limitations on the employer, the hospital authority, or even this government. It’s a commitment we could not meet. But I want to advise the Member that I believe progress has been made at Stanton. They are looking at all possible options to see how these NP positions could be re-profiled, and it’s the responsibility of the new public administrator to do that.

Mr. Chairman, I didn’t get an answer

as to whether we have lost any to this program, where we’ve trained them and they didn’t want to go to the communities. How many have we lost because they decided to seek employment outside of the Northwest Territories, because quite obviously their first choice was not a small community so they’ve packed up and left? I’m trying to get a sense of how many we’ve lost and what that’s cost us in government money that’s been invested for that. I just want to make sure our investment is going in the right direction, which is filling nurse practitioner positions that are needed for the North. I’m trying to get a sense of the number of nurse practitioners who would have left the North that we’ve trained, and how much in financial dollars we’ve lost in that investment?

My information is that we do not

know of any NPs trained in the North who have left. I got a motion from one of our Members, who knows there might have been one. I will undertake to look into that further and get back to the Member.

Thank you, Minister

Lee. Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Given that

we’re on the page, I just have a real quick question. I see that the graduate placement program is being reduced, and I understand that’s due to lack of enrolment or lack of uptake on the program, which makes sense. I mean, if we don’t have enough students, it makes sense not to spend the money — or rather, to reinvest that money in more appropriate areas. But it raises a different question to me.

Given the importance of nurses and the success we’ve had at Aurora College and intake on that nursing program, I’m really curious why the enrolment is dropping off so far. I understand that graduate levels next year.... There will only be

seven nurses graduating out of the Aurora College nursing program. Given the importance of northern nurses and their ability to contribute to our system and hopefully help us alleviate some of our challenges, what is the department doing to help increase enrolment at Aurora College, thus increasing the number of nurses in the program?

Which leads to another question: if you do that and it works, and your enrolment goes back up, are you not going to be in trouble on the grad placement front? Are you then not going to have enough money to place the grads as you currently do?

Minister Lee.

The information we have is that

almost all the grads who graduated from Aurora College this year — I believe there were about 18 — were offered positions within the NWT, some of them in Stanton; some of them have gone to Fort Smith and other areas — Beaufort-Delta. I think there are three who did not take the option. There are some who have chosen to move away; their families are elsewhere. But that was a huge success. Now I would like ask the deputy minister why there might be reduced enrolment for this year.

Thank you, Minister.

Mr. Cummings.

I commend you guys on the

placement of the grads. I think that’s fantastic; I think it’s going a long way to helping us with our nursing problem.

My question was more around…. I understand that the enrolments are dropping, but to me that’s very worrisome. We need to keep those numbers up, and we need be graduating as many northern nurses as we can. So my question to you is: what are the department and the government going to do to continue to get people to enrol in this program and succeed? If the nursing students are facing challenges with child care and finances, what are we going to do to help maximize northern employment and keep our enrolment levels up in a program we know is good and successful? Your grad placement is good. You’ve placed almost

every grad that’s come out of that program into this system. All great; all fantastic. I’m a little worried about what’s going to happen now with these enrolment levels dropping.

Then it comes back to the budget reduction. I get it now. It makes sense: if enrolment numbers are low, let’s spend the money somewhere else. But if we can get enrolment back up to where it needs to be, you might find you don’t have the money to actually do grad placement. So two questions: if you do your job well and you get these enrolments up and more graduates, are you going to have the money you need after you do this cut?

The program at Aurora College,

even though it’s nursing- and health-related, is really the jurisdiction of the college. I’m sure the Minister responsible will be able to provide additional information in that regard.

I do agree with the Member. My observation has been also that we could do a better job in terms of coordinating the government work in the way we.... The nurses we train at Aurora College should be placed properly and get the support and resources needed to pursue their practice. I think we could do a better job of coordinating that, because I am aware of some of the pressures that Stanton has had in incorporating those nurse grads.

I think we will continue to face the challenge of not only nursing grads but other professionals who want to work in Yellowknife and are not so interested in working outside of Yellowknife. That’s a challenge for us, because that’s where the most needs are. I think Yellowknife is more capable and better positioned to be able to recruit and retain staff from southern jurisdictions — better, anyway, than smaller communities. We need to work toward refining the program, working the program better to enhance the opportunities for these professionals to move into communities.

I have not had a chance to look at that as part of the human resource work at Stanton and system-wide. As we move forward under this fiscal situation where we have to look at systematic changes to better use our human resources, whether they be doctors, nurses or any other health care professionals…. I am really interested in looking at staffing models, service-provision models and recruiting and retaining policies to better meet that. So I don’t have that answer. I understand the Member’s issue, and I look forward to going to the standing committee with that plan.

Just in closing, I think it’s all well

and good; I think it’s great. I know that Aurora College is the responsibility of the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. But as the primary employer and the organization that facilitates practicum and on-the-job training

opportunities, I do think the department should collaborate and work very closely with Education, Culture and Employment to find solutions to keep these enrolment levels up.

As far as placements go, I understand your challenges. I get it. I know we can’t place everybody in Yellowknife, and I think you have done a great job through the graduate placement program. I hope you continue to do a great job through the placement program. My questions were more specific to what we are going to do when there aren’t nurses coming out of that program, period. Like I said, I encourage you to work closely with the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment to find the solutions to these problems as they come forward. So no question; just a comment.

Thank you,

Mr. Abernethy. That was a comment. Next on the list is Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I

move that we report progress.

Thank you,

Mrs. Groenewegen. A motion is on the floor to report progress. The motion is in order and is non-debatable.

Motion carried.