Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to start by saying that I recognize the importance of morale and solid organizational culture. We've just been through a very intense period of that in this building. And of course, it happens in other places as well. But the end result is that we want to build a strong and satisfied public service. So there are a variety of tools available to us, including employment engagement and satisfaction surveys. I talked about those last week with my colleague from Kam Lake. There are surveys attached to the accreditation, and there is currently a survey going on by the professional organization of nurses.
The department or the NTHSSA recently did an exit survey with nurses that left their positions between January and August of this year. And there are a couple of key findings.
One is that their satisfaction is not tied to compensation. That was not one of the top three issues they identified. The top three issues were that they left for personal reasons, which included things like the needs of their families and moving to accompany a partner to a new position.
They also identified dissatisfaction with management, including the level of support they received, turnover in management and staff, and the orientation that's provided; and,
Third, the consideration that the workplace is unsafe because of staff shortages. So this speaks to the understaffing issue that we have heard about.
So there are existing labor management processes and relationships in place to deal with these challenges, and it is critical that the UNW take part in these conversations. And as a matter of fact, we had a good preliminary meeting with UNW, including the president for the local at the hospital on the weekend, that included both myself and the Minister and our senior officials.
As the Member for Great Slave may know, the collective agreement provides for joint consultation committees who identify and develop joint plans of action to respond to pressing issues that become morale issues and that committee at the hospital is in place and meets regularly. Thank you.