Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am continuing with the thread of questions from my Member's statement except this time for the finance Minister.
Mr. Speaker, do we have a set target of indeterminate staff we need to reach, and how close are we to meeting that target? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Frame Lake. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the target was to have an increase in indeterminate healthcare professionals of 5 percent annually. So it's not a set number target but as I said earlier, certainly happy to look if there's additional ways that we can continue to monitor the work that's happening with the HRU. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I guess I should have made my question more clear. Because I was aware of the 5 percent per year target; what I was talking about was an ultimate target.
I am going to move on to my next question, however. Nurses and allied professions were mentioned in the statement, but doctors were not. How is our progress looking on recruiting physicians? Do we have targets related to physician recruitment, and how close are we to meeting those and I mean ultimate targets, not percentage. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, I -- this is where there is a split in responsibility between myself and the Minister of Health and Social Services. The mandate for health recruitment unit doesn't include physicians. That would be under the Office of Medical Affairs and Credentialing. But, Mr. -- and, again, Mr. Speaker, I expect at this point we may well have to go back and just make sure that we're questioning whether or not there's other forms of looking at the achievements that we're having. We brought in indeterminate staff -- or brought up indeterminate staff by 29 percent relative to the workforce in just March of 2024, so a little over two years ago. Those are big percentages. It doesn't include turnover. But, again, happy to see if there's increasingly additional ways that we can monitor the work that's happening in the space. Thank you.
Final supplementary. Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate those clarifications. It's a bit of a confusing space to understand with recruitment happening in various different areas.
Mr. Speaker, how does the recruitment unit relate to and coordinate with the health department on targets, needs, and desired outcomes? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, those conversations are ongoing regularly. I know I have, on previous times when the HRU was earlier set up, a few years ago now, had the opportunity to engage with my department and with the Department of Health and Social Services to make sure that, in fact, there were those communications happening. There's regular updates that come from individual divisions and departments within health and social services and the authorities, comes in through assigned folks within health and -- or within the Department of Finance who are assigned to the HRU to specifically maintain those contact positions directly with management. So this is very much the kind of work that happens to maintain that continuity. That's the benefit of HRU in part, Mr. Speaker, is that it allows a singular place where there's an organized person, a mandated person, and they have contacts directly and so they're constantly getting updates as to the openings that need to be filled. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Finance. Oral questions. Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
