Thank you to the Member of Monfwi. Please go ahead, Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, that was the -- that is for the wellness and recovery centre and so through the budgets, as we have needed it, this is a fully, I believe, federal funded capital project and so it's being funded through -- as we can roll out this year what needs -- what's needing to be allocated, and I believe it was over three years until it was completed, and then we -- to open. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. To the Member of Monfwi.
Thank you. Okay, there's a decrease for the upcoming fiscal year to Aging with Dignity Funding Agreement. It was down in 2025-2026 and then with the revised estimate, and then now with a -- in the main estimate, it's down a bit to 3.6. Aging with Dignity Funding Agreement, that's very important, especially for people living in small communities in long-term care, etcetera. So if the Minister can explain, is that -- is it due to that -- because of the federal announcement?
Thank you to the Member of Monfwi. Please go ahead, assistant deputy minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The three-year agreement is -- the value of the agreement has not changed. When we put our proposal into the feds on how we wanted to spend the money, we just allocated it a little bit differently over each year, and so that is what's represented there. It's not that any funding has gone down from the federal government. It's just how we have allocated to spend the total value of the agreement. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, assistant deputy minister. I'll remind the Member that we're on the activity of administrative and support services, so if you can maintain the questions related to that activity there, please. Please go ahead, Member of Monfwi.
Okay, so what page are we on, then? 198, okay. I know that with administrative and support services, I don't see in here -- it would have been nice if we can -- if we know the administrative and support services, if it was broken down by regions so then I could see clearly how much is being spent to Tlicho region. You know, like, I am sure you would like to know too, for Sahtu, you know, because all regions are important to us and we do rely heavily on the government program and services. Thank you.
Thank you to the Member of Monfwi. Minister, do you want to reply?
Yes, I would just refer to the funding to other sources in the appendices. That is where it's broken down to the different authorities. And so I believe if the Member is looking for the Tlicho health authority, TCSA, that would be broken down of what that's allocated there. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the Minister. No further questions for the Member of Monfwi. We shall move on here. One of the Members is missing, so I will go with the Member of Great Slave then on to Yellowknife North. Please go ahead there, Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll try and be brief. I am very excited about the 24/7 model of the laboratory and diagnostic imaging services for Stanton that has been announced in this budget. It appears that 21 new positions will be established to support that model.
Can the Minister elaborate as to how that model will run and whether or not positions will be difficult to recruit and retain? I know that having such a service is very important to many of my constituents, and I know they would want to see it succeed. We have difficulty with retention sometimes in health care, so I'd love to hear the Minister's thoughts on that. Thank you.
Thank you, Member of Great Slave. To the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The important piece around this laboratory and expansion, x-ray expansion in the budget, is related to many of the issues that we have heard from, you know, from town halls, heard from residents through BFs, through MLAs, through other Ministers bringing their concerns to my office, as well as my own constituents. As you know that the Stanton -- you know, the positions will be, you know, put into the territorial -- Stanton Territorial Hospital but the Stanton Territorial Hospital, as I say, is a territorial support for the entire territory.
So it's really important that -- that when we -- currently, we have a seven and a half hour, you know, with extended hours and flex -- you know, sometimes they flex and most of the time it's overtime. We do not have enough positions to run a 24-hour but yet we need a 24-hour because we know that our hospital is gridlocked, our ICU is always full, our emergency department is always full, and therefore patients need to move. And usually the things that are holding up, you know, making sure that they're being diagnosed properly or tended to properly is blood work, is x-rays, is CT scans, is those types of things.
And where we were also spending a lot of money is sending a lot of the tests out of territory. And so where another part of it is is that we had to increase our -- like, we couldn't keep putting more and more on this current staffing levels that we had. And we heard that from the staff, that we had to increase the staff so that way when all of the blood work is coming in from all of the communities in the territory that that is being serviced and it's being actioned all the time. So there's always somebody working in the lab. There's always somebody drawing blood. There's always somebody there to be able to x-ray. So this is why it's so important that, you know, we take this -- we recognize that this is a territorial initiative. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Member of Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And apologies if I wasn't clear. My interest is in what the Minister and her department and the authority, I suppose, will do to retain these positions. I assume not everybody wants to work the midnight shift at the lab, although it -- as the Minister has demonstrated in her last response, it is very important and it is very needed for everyone in the territory. So is there a plan in place to make sure that once we have recruited these positions, what retention looks like. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Member of Great Slave. Minister.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the conversations that I've had with NTHSSA, as this is the operational arm of the health, they have stated to us that these types of positions right now that they are -- they can pretty much say that they are able to recruit these positions, especially at the territorial hospital. And so what we have done, you know, and I think is that we've asked them to start to look at it, to be able to start that operationally and look as to what it looks like. And as some of -- under the direction of myself is to -- because NTHSSA, you know, they create their budgets, they can reallocate as needed, they have been ramping up these efforts and looking and recruiting in to bringing on extra staffing, which is already showing results. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Member of Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I don't know how to restate it, but I am curious if there are any retention measures that are also being considered by NTHSSA for this new 24/7 model. Thank you.
Thank you, Member of Great Slave. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, they would follow our collective agreement if they are eligible for whatever's under the collective agreement as well as the current things that we have within the health authority to support and retain through our previous recruitment initiatives. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Member of Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll put that one down for the moment.
Can the Minister describe the role of the newly proposed nurse case manager positions for medical travel, the medical travel case management initiative, how -- I recognize, I think -- I believe it's three positions are being added for this new initiative. Does the Minister feel that three positions are adequate, enough people to suss through all of the various longstanding issuing with medical travel that is discussed in this House every single session? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Member of Great Slave. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. As this is through hospital services and that will be within the health authority, I know that is another section, and I -- I mean, high levelly, these three positions, it is a pilot over the next couple of years, is this is what we're trying to do. We don't want to create something that is not working but we also want to be flexible to put -- what we've heard from many residents that are travelling is that travel is not coordinated, it comes in, nobody's coordinating the travel, people are travelling out, and then they have to come back, and then they're travelling out a week later or even sometimes at the end of the week.
And this is -- we have to look at ways and we have to have people in there that can manage that and can case manage all of our travel. And so there's -- we currently, within the health authority, under medical travel, that administer the medical travel, they have teams. And so one of these case managers will be assigned to each of those teams to ensure that when patients are -- you know, we have many locums, many physicians, locums, nurses that are coming in that are -- you know, that are terms that may not know our system, and so sometimes they'll put in a medical travel when it's not necessary. Or administrative staff might get a referral that says that somebody needs a follow-up but that follow-up could actually be done in the territory or virtually. That's what this is going to do. And over the next couple of years, if these positions are in the budget, moving forward, then we will be able to track and manage how they are supporting their unit. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. I just want to share a reminder by our interpreters requesting Members to slow down. So if we can all be mindful of our interpretation staff.
Thank you, Minister. And we will go back to the Member. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I hope I am being slow enough. I will try.
I think my last question, as my time is running out is -- and I want to thank the Minister for that answer, and I want to thank her and her staff for identifying that indeed there is oversight needed on medical travel, and I think this initiative is a good idea.
Can the Minister please tell me if these new positions, and indeed this work of this initiative, will more fully dovetail with the medical travel approach of the -- for GNWT employees. There seems to be some disparate pieces between the two and how they're handled. I think if -- no matter where you're employed or if you're employed within the NWT, you should be receiving the same level of service for medical travel. Is there any contemplation around a bigger wholesale review of medical travel case management in that perspective? Maybe not for these positions, but in general. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Member of Great Slave. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I believe -- and I can -- I believe within medical travel, whether you're with any other insurance that -- if it's GNWT that's paying for your travel out of territory, this is prior to that. So this is going to be the case management to say whether or not this travel can be done in your home community, is it urgent, does it need to be done right now, is there a need that -- you know, that we could, you know, actually book it because you have another appointment coming up, you know, it's -- so that is what that is before it goes to who's paying for the medical travel. So I believe that that's within the system. And then once it's deemed that they need to travel, that's when it would be referred to -- because I believe GNWT doesn't get the information as to why the person is travelling. They just get to know that it's been approved for travel.
Thank you, Minister. We will now move on to the Yellowknife North Member, and afterwards, if the Mackenzie Delta Member returns, he will be going afterwards. Please go ahead there, Yellowknife North Member.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So just to continue along my previous line of questions and also to build upon the questions of my colleague from Great Slave, so we see in the business plan that employee turnover rates between 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 actually got a bit worse. They've been pretty stable but got slightly worse, and employee turnover is about 15 percent. I know the Minister has referred to a new people strategy that we can expect to see soon, but we have been talking about staff recruitment -- sorry, especially staff retention over the last two years and as far as we can tell, we don't see that there's been any improvement. So can the Minister point or assure us that there's actually going to be new approaches that will turn this around and change something in terms of employee turnover coming soon? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Member of Yellowknife North. Please go ahead there, Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I appreciate this question. I know that within the health and social services area, it is -- you know, and I -- we struggle to retain healthcare workers. You know, I mean, of all of the reasons that we talk about in this House, you know, the cost of living, the -- you know, and there's -- we have childcare issues. There's many different reasons why. However, there's things that are -- we're restrained by within the public service that we can provide to staff, and I think that's the issue right now that we're dealing with. It's the things that the staff that have raised that if we -- you know, that we struggle that we -- within being public service against collective agreements and things like that that we are -- so what we are trying to do is we are trying to stay within the area that we can support, and we're going to continue with the things that we have had but there are -- with the people strategy coming out, there is going to be new things, and there's going to be things that we may have to relook at our -- like, health and social services has to relook at their budget. And I think this comes along with the health sustainability unit. And the work that they're doing is as a health and social services system, we need to retain our staff and provide programming, but right now we're already struggling to do that within the budget that we have. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Back to the Member of Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I can appreciate for sure that some of the keys to staff retention go beyond HSS. So how is the Minister working together in some sort of systemic way with, say the Minister of Finance, to ensure that all the possible tools are used to ensure health care worker retention, like, around collective bargaining and other sort of general HR practices. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the Member of Yellowknife North. Please go ahead, Minister.
Yes, I am going to turn that over to the deputy minister because the deputy minister at his level is working -- that is where I think, with him, and the other -- the departments that are having these conversations. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Please go ahead, deputy minister.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you for the question. So as the Member stated -- and building on what the Minister said, there -- when we look at recruitment and retention across -- regardless of the sector, whether it's health care or not, there's -- it is complex and there's all -- there's multiple factors. So there is ongoing work across government at the deputy level and at levels below on items related to housing to support workers and things of that nature. And also within the health system, the NTHSSA in particular, have developed a work plan which is focused on initiatives to be able to recruit and retain healthcare workers. So that work plan is currently in draft, so it's not been shared publicly. But there's several initiatives in that as well that would look to address some of the recruitment and retention issues across the health care space. Thank you.
Thank you, deputy minister. Member of Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So when are those new strategies or approaches going to be made public? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the Member. Please go ahead, Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, a lot of the -- so within this budget, it also takes in account some of the funding that they get for their recruitment and retention. And the way that health and social services, NTHSSA, and the authorities, build their budgets is once the -- like, right now, they're tentatively building their budgets but we don't see those budgets until after the budget is approved, and then they are able to finalize the money that's being allocated to them to put their -- to be able to allocate where their priorities are. And so this is -- as we said, the draft of their work plan is on going but the draft of the work plan is not going to be released publicly until that we can review it and we know what kind of funding that the health authorities will be getting and that we know -- ensure that they're dedicating funding to some of these areas within the draft work plan. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Chair. I'll settle for that.
Or Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister. To the Member of Yellowknife North.
Okay. Maybe just with some limited time left, I know that one sort of promising avenue for trying to get more retention of healthcare workers is to hire more local students and recent graduates, people who grew up here, people who are from here, people who are already based here and have ties to this community. So how does HSS or the health authorities connect with, say, Aurora College graduates of the nursing program or local candidates for various health care professions to try to ensure that we have more local people taking these jobs? I do see in the business plan that 49 percent of new hires, at least in 2023-2024, were already NWT residents. I don't know how many sort of grew up here or for how long. But maybe the Minister can explain what efforts there are to try to recruit, you know, local people and recent graduates. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the Member of Yellowknife North. Please go ahead, Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we have been very -- and I had this conversation with the NTHSSA just this week, and that is -- you know, it's -- the thing with them is that they're already starting to look at and reach out to the Aurora College graduates that are coming out too see where they want to work, how it -- like, and which communities they want to work in when they're graduating this year. Last year, I think they found places for every graduate that wanted to work in the territory, whether it was the nursing, the personal support worker. I believe the LPN programs that have come in the past, they're all -- anyone who wants to come -- that's coming out of those programs is being provided with jobs. This year, there is going to be another large nursing graduating class so I was under the understanding that they are -- they feel that they can provide spaces for all of them in our system as well. But going forward, one of the struggles that they do have is that more and more that we're getting new grads into the system that we need to provide more mentorship. So that's why some of the pieces around the retention is working that into that draft plan, is building more mentorship within our own system so that those staff that are there -- you know, if they need to be an obstetric nurse, that they're being mentored into that area. If they need an OR nurse, we're mentoring them to those specialties, and then being able to provide them -- and it's also with the ones that are going south. Because we have the health bursary, the NTHSSA has said that now that they have the health bursary, they're able to track better all of the healthcare workers that are -- like, that are -- the students that are in health care fields that are out in school, they're able to reconnect with them to see whether they're coming back, when they're coming back, stuff like that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
