Madam Chair, yes, that is in the works. As I indicated in the House several times, we are making a strong effort with the health authorities to bring doctors to communities where the doctors should be. We are definitely having difficulties getting doctors into Hay River. We are hoping that with the new health centre, plus our work with the NWT Medical Association, we are going to be able to have doctors in Hay River. If that doesn’t work, and if that doesn’t work in any of the other communities where there should be doctors, then yes, a plan B would be to move to a pool within the NWT, a territorial pool where doctors would be located somewhere in the Northwest Territories that could be working in one of the communities designated to have doctors.

Right now the schedule as is, there are nine doctors in Inuvik, of which we have five; two doctors in Norman Wells; two in Simpson, neither of which has doctors living in them; two doctors in Behchoko that live here; five doctors scheduled for Fort Smith, of which we have two; and seven scheduled in Hay River, which we have none. The plan is, once we work with the Joint Leadership Council – that is the chairs and the public administrators of all the health authorities across the territory – then we will develop something such as a territorial pool that would… The territorial pool of doctors would not necessarily be in Yellowknife, but somewhere in the territory. In reality, we could have a territorial pool of doctors, as an example, in Inuvik that would work the Sahtu. We could even have a territorial pool doctors in Smith or Hay River that work in other parts. Like, many of them do come to Stanton to work in Stanton.

An example is of the two doctors we have in Fort Smith, one of the doctors does shifts up here at the Stanton. That would be an example where doctors

would be free to move around within the system to provide a better service for the people of the Territories.