Lesa Semmler

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And since you didn't see my hand, I am just going to recognize Anna Pingo because I know she is my constituent.

Mr. Speaker, I have a return to oral question asked by the Member for Range Lake on February 9, 2026, regarding medical travel policy and ministerial exemptions.

Mr. Speaker, the medical travel policy is in place for residents who need support with travel to and from scheduled appointments for services not available in their home community to ensure that residents have access to necessary health services.

Mr. Speaker, the medical travel policy does not apply in...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I could only hope that, you know, we'd have tons of nurses that are going to go out that are going to go and take expanded scope and want to work in a health centre and live there. Yes, I wish that would happen; however, you know, I think the change in our workforce is different. We used to be able to even do job shares for 6 and 12 weeks, up to 12-week job shares in some of our communities. And now with the level that the nurses are willing to agree to, it might be 6 weeks, it might be 4 weeks. And so the change in the way that they want to work -- you...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, paramedics are pretty great. They are very versatile. They have different levels, and depending on the levels that they have educated and they're certified through their regulatory body in another jurisdiction, they can do many things. However, within the review that has happened and highlighting that paramedics could be implemented, that work is ongoing. And where the Member talks about all of the primary care services, that is the area that, you know, the nurses would be focused on. That is in their scope of practice. So whatever the scope of practice...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, within child and family services, there has been a bigger shift in foster care placement. I believe that there is around 1,000 kids that are actually utilizing -- families that are utilizing the service of child and family services; however, I believe there's only 154 at this time that are in placements out of that. Many of them -- 75 percent of them, I believe, are remaining in their home, and those that aren't remaining in their home are with extended family or family -- community members known to the child. So everything that child and family services...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the paramedic scope of practice, you know, to be clear, is when those conversations happen, the nurse is within -- is in on the call. The part of it is that once the assessment is done, many of the health centres -- so people who live in small communities and health centres know that if there is a callback that there needs to be an eight-hour rest. And if there's only two other nurses and one nurse is assigned some other duties and the nurse that gets called back, usually what ends up happening is all of the clinics get cancelled for the next day. So what...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to be very, very clear so that -- the paramedics that we have used in the health centres are a contract that we are obligated to hold when it's fire season. So we contract paramedics so that way if a community is evacuated, that we send the health -- like, the community health nurse and all of the staff in the community leave the community; however, we need to send in paramedics into that health centre to support the emergency responders working in that community. So what we have done is we've been paying for them, and so over the summer months is...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this is on the work plan; however, as I said last week, the health care sustainability unit is analyzing and looking at the supportive living program as it is, so we have paused any of this work until we get the outcomes of that because we don't want to be investing into areas where there's a higher need that may come through the analysis through the healthcare system sustainability unit. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, over the years there's been many different ways to try and analyze this and right now, what this government has done is we have highlighted the medical travel piece, which also includes out-of-territory physician services, which is being analyzed right now by the health sustainability unit. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don't have that level of detail.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the previous health recruitment strategy and the bridging strategy was all within the -- you know, what the NTHSSA could control. And so year after year, staff were frustrated and frustrated and frustrated because many of the issues that they were bringing forward were not in the recruitment strategy. So there are -- the things that we left -- there are still the things that are good that are going to remain in the strategy, but the scope of the people strategy expanded to an all-of-government initiative creating additional coordination. And so there is...