Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So in follow up to my statement today, I want to ask questions of the Minister of Health and Social Services. And so I understand that currently there's already some use of contracted private paramedics in small community health centres, and the department is looking to expand that or put more of a framework around it but there's clearly sort of a reason in mind or what the purpose would be for this.
So my first question is are paramedics operating in community health centres meant to do simply all the same tasks that community health nurses currently can do, or are they meant to do additional tasks or different things than is currently within the scope of practice of a community health nurse? For example, treating patients outside community health centres in stabilizing or transporting. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife North. Minister of Health and Social Services.
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 also a time when it's challenging to ensure that our community health centres remain open because nurses do work -- do not -- like, we have casual nurses that are coming in and some are on their time off, so the primary objective right now is for them to maintain operations at a minimum, avoiding closures during those months. Paramedics have different scopes than CHNs, and they only work within their scope. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So can the Minister clarify whether paramedics that are operating in community health centres, are they required to be supervised by a health authority employee such as the nurse in charge at all times, or are they permitted to work shifts alone? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Paramedics that are operating in the health centres are overseen at all times and are part of the collaborative team. When they are the only resource in a health centre due to being an emergency service, paramedics will consult with physicians on physician orders, and community health nurses do have the ability to initiate some treatment under the protocols that they have without physician orders. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So the Minister has mentioned in the past in this House that part of the idea of having a paramedic there to help is to be able to take the night shift so a community health nurse can have more rest. So if that was occurring and the paramedic was answering phones at night -- and yet we've just heard they're required to be overseen at all times by the nurse in charge. If a paramedic made a decision about a patient, say, in the middle of the night that had serious negative consequences for that patient, who would then be responsible; is it the nurse in charge or the paramedic? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
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 this is, is to enhance the support in the health centre to take the call then to -- you know, because a lot of times when the health centre gets phone calls and things like that, you know, they can refer them to 8-1-1, you know, and they can triage the call, call the nurse down, and be there to start the assessment, which might limit the time that the CHN actually has to be called back. So there's -- and as I am saying, this is something that's not set in stone. As the Member has stated, that there's a position that is in the proposed budget that we did a high-level analysis that we know that the health centre model of care hasn't changed -- my entire career, you know, anybody who's worked in this system has known that we need to make changes, we need to make sure that it's flexible. We know that the CHN model of care is the best model; however, what we want to do is we want to enhance that model. We want to look at investigating how LPNs could fit into that model. How can we fit in paramedics into that model to support those communities and to support those nurses. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Oral Questions. Member from the Sahtu.
