Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So further to my statement, I wanted to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services more questions about what paramedics are intended to do or not do in small remote communities. So, some of the demand for paramedics in the small remote communities is because of the sense that they'll be able to do things that community health nurses are not allowed to do due to all those health authority rules.
My first question is, are paramedics contracted by the health authority working in these small communities allowed or even expected to leave the health centre and treat patients in their homes or elsewhere? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife North. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as the Member has stated, you know, the work that is going to happen over the next couple of years is to analyze if it's possible for -- and how we could implement paramedics into supporting the current model as we need more -- we need to increase the capacity in the health centre. But as for the question, no, NTHSSA does not -- they're not going to be going out of the health centre. Their role would be in the health centre facility. And based on, you know, the outcome of the work that's going to happen over the assessment, there are different levels of paramedics. There's primary care paramedics. You know, there's advance -- so in the capital, you know, for the city, those paramedics that work, work for the city, and those are emergency responding advanced practice. There's the ones that work with the air ambulance. Those are advanced practice. They have -- they sometimes have more skills than the nurses do. So thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thanks to the Minister for clarifying. I think I heard clarification that currently that is not the practice, that paramedics are expected to leave the health centre.
So my second question is, is the health authority prepared to contract paramedics to work in health cabins where there is no nurse stationed and there's often no RCMP presence? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as of right now, the work that we are doing in health cabins is to train the community wellness workers to be able to correspond and work with the nurse practitioners that are assigned to the health cabins. And so that work is ongoing right now, but paramedics aren't included in that system at this moment. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Member from Yellowknife North. Final supplementary.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thanks to the Minister for that clarification. And finally, are the paramedics contracted by the health authority required to follow health authority rules and protocols, or do they get to just follow some other set of protocols? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the paramedics that work currently in our facilities when there is -- you know, if there is a critical level of staffing, so if they are to work in, say, emergency to support the emergency department, they will work within the guidelines and the policies that are created based on their scope of practice and what they're registered and what their training is. And that's how they would recruit that level of paramedic.
If they're working in the health centre, it's the same. There's guidelines and policies that they have to work with under. And the paramedics are -- you know, they're regulated through, yes, a -- if they're trained in Alberta and they're regulated through the regulatory body through Alberta, there's still an expectation that they are self-regulating and to keep their license and keep active and to be able to work, that they have to stay within their scope that they're trained to do. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Oral Questions. Member from Range Lake.
