Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, heavy reliance on contracting out healthcare staff is expensive and doesn't build local capacity. Investing in permanent northern staff will save money long term and improve continuity of care, particularly in regional and small communities. My question for the Minister of health is how much money are we spending annually on contract and agency staff? Thank you.
Thank you, Range Lake. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don't have that level of detail; however, I do know that I do get monthly updates when I have my meeting with the NTHSSA. And since December, I believe we've used two and that is to ensure that the Inuvik obstetrics stays open. However, we are more and more relying on just continuing with our long-term casuals and our terms that do come back. A lot of the recruitment and retention that's been done has -- although it's not filling all our vacancies, they are filling job shares which are more permanent in the communities and that's -- you know, we're trying to change the way we're staffing. That's how we got the nurse practitioners into the Dehcho, is just trying to look at different ways to permanently staff in different ways. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the numbers would be good because my next question is how does -- how much do we spend on contracts and agency workers compared to what we spend on recruiting permanent healthcare workers? Because that -- if there's a deficiency there and it's significant, then we need to ask ourselves the question are we really investing in a northern workforce. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, that, I will have to take back as I don't have that information, and I'd have to work with my colleague, Minister of Finance, to be able to come up with that type of information. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Final supplementary. Member from Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I look forward to that information and so do healthcare workers.
Mr. Speaker, how is this government balancing permanent staff and contract agency workers in northern health care? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I stated that the reliance on agency nurses is declining in the Northwest Territories as we are strengthening the way that we are recruiting and the type of -- you know, we're recruiting half-time positions and job shares and we're looking at different ways to meet the needs of the workforce today. So that is one of the most important pieces is that we're not solely reliant on filling a lot of the needs. There's a lot of misunderstanding because there are casual term nurses that do come into the system but they are paid under the collective agreement the same as all the other nurses that are on the floor. And those are to ensure that we -- you know, we have enough staff to be able to take care of the residents when they're in our hospitals and our facilities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
