Mr. Speaker, for many Northerners lacking access to a family doctor, the emergency room, once a last resort, has now become the only option for care. Month after month, I hear from constituents in Range Lake enduring six to ten-hour wait times for emergency room treatments that should be routine. How can we reasonably expect our doctors and nurses to provide safe and timely emergency care when their volume of patient overflows month after month thanks to gridlocks, cancellations, understaffing, alongside the alarming lack of access to primary care. Yet, year after year, the health and social services has failed to reflect these realities in its reports on statistics. Now the Minister suddenly insists that the ER will remain open by any means necessary, but so far her solutions amount to little more than adjusting shift schedules for a workforce already stretched to its limit without meaningful input from the professionals on the ground. If the Minister were to truly consult with frontline staff, she would hear unequivocally that Stanton requires at least a dozen more emergency physicians, yet currently, only two are in place. And it doesn't stop there.
The need is urgent for unit clerks, mental health nurses, care coordinators, social workers, lab assistants, and personnel to support elders and individuals struggling with addictions. When pressed on how she intends to reach appropriate staffing levels, the answer appears to be a revolving door of temporary workers, staff who must be constantly trained and oriented and who lack the necessary experience to respond to life threatening emergencies such as strokes or cardiac arrests.
This, Mr. Speaker, is not health care. This is chaos. And concerns about even further deterioration of our system are not hypothetical. They are the reality we've witnessed for far too long.
Last week, the Minister stood in a public forum and claimed that the Northwest Territories is the best place in Canada to get sick and seek treatment even as she admitted that residents cannot book a primary care appointment and, in many cases, can't even get someone to answer the phone. If the Minister cannot come before this chamber with a serious, credible plan, grounded in staff consultation, focused on real capacity building, then, Mr. Speaker, we may not have an emergency room at all this summer. Thank you.