There does seem to be some continued confusion and I’m happy to sit down with the Member to talk, but I’d like to clarify for the Member that the ultrasound machine at Fort Simpson is not the kind used by sonographers to perform diagnostic tests. Rather, the machine at Simpson, the portable ultrasound machine, is the kind that is used by doctors and nurse practitioners and midwives at the bedside to help them make immediate decisions about patient care; things such as checking someone in an accident has internal bleeding or to check to see if a baby is in breach. Establishing a full diagnostic ultrasound service in a new site is a very complex undertaking with issues across the board.
As background, Mr. Speaker, sonographers have been identified as one of the leading health and social services positions that are hard to recruit. It’s almost impossible to find these individuals who can do the full diagnostic using the full ultrasound machines. We continue to struggle to find sonographers at the two locations where we do have full ultrasound machines. However, with the more established NWT Health and Social Services Authority, we have the opportunity to make sure that we’re using our resources and diagnostic services in areas such as ultrasound to their full capacity, and that means reviewing the care that is being provided to see if there’s any opportunity.
Can I commit that we’ll have a full ultrasound machine in Simpson? I can’t. We would need to do an analysis on demand. If you’re going to hire a sonographer, you want them working basically full-time on providing those deep diagnostic tests, which is not something that is available in Simpson. The demand is not high enough to justify a full sonographer, which is a hard-to-recruit position. I will commit to looking at it at a territorial level and seeing if there are any opportunities for other places where demand might be higher to see what opportunities exist for rolling out a greater range of sonography services across the territory.