One of the biggest issues our healthcare system is facing right now is understaffing. ItSA国际影视传媒檚 no secret, and itSA国际影视传媒檚 not a problem unique to the NWT.

With stiff competition for workers across jurisdictions, healthcare workers are in a position where they can be choosy about where they live and work.

This means our territorial government needs to do better than the south in offering a more competitive package to prospective healthcare workers. Better wages that factor in cost of living and more flexibility with scheduling are two things our members in healthcare tell us would go a long way toward improving retention.

The GNWT has, over the past couple years, received influxes of healthcare dollars from the federal government. How has NWT Health and Social Services Authority (NSHSSA) senior management chosen to spend this money to solve the staffing crisis? Hire more agency workers. There are two very big problems with this approach.

The first big problem is that agencies are not bound by the collective agreement provisions that ensure all healthcare workers are treated equitably when it comes to wages, leaves and working conditions. I am sure senior management sees this as a benefit: no HR management or accountability if you can outsource it!

When resident workers see job postings for agency workers offering better wages, higher bonuses and cost of living allowances that far exceed their own compensation, it loudly contradicts the GNWTSA国际影视传媒檚 message that they value their own employees and are doing their best to recruit and retain resident workers.

So where does this leave resident workers? What weSA国际影视传媒檙e hearing from our members in the healthcare system is that morale is at an all-time low and NTHSSASA国际影视传媒檚 retention problem is about to get a whole lot worse. Resident workers that feel undervalued and unappreciated arenSA国际影视传媒檛 being shown otherwise. It doesnSA国际影视传媒檛 make them want to stay.

Our members are concerned about the increased workload for resident nurses who have to train and retrain agency nurses on a continual basis. This takes a nurse away from patient care.

TheySA国际影视传媒檙e also concerned about culturally appropriate healthcare and continuity of care, which should concern all NWT residents. Agency nurses donSA国际影视传媒檛 build lasting relationships with patients or community members. ItSA国际影视传媒檚 so important for healthcare providers to have knowledge and understanding of their communities.

Agency healthcare workers also donSA国际影视传媒檛 contribute to the NWT economy. They take their higher wages home with them where cost of living is lower and their dollar goes farther. They don't contribute to municipal taxes and generally do not volunteer with community organizations.

And despite our members raising all these concerns, the GNWT wants to be able to choose the SA国际影视传媒渆asy optionSA国际影视传媒� of agency nurses over meaningful recruitment and retention efforts.

This leads to our second big problem: the privatization of our healthcare system.

To be clear, the union will never say no to agency nurses if there is legitimately no other option to provide care.

But there are provinces down south that are working towards banning the use of nursing agencies due to how much theySA国际影视传媒檙e costing governments. Hospital authorities are regularly over-spending taxpayer dollars because thereSA国际影视传媒檚 no limit on how much these for-profit agencies can charge.

You can find the GNWTSA国际影视传媒檚 contracts for agency nurses online, and they run into the millions of dollars per year. During the February session of the legislative assembly, the health minister said there are only a handful of agency nurses employed at any given moment. So where is this all that money going? How much of the money being allocated to SA国际影视传媒淣WT healthcareSA国际影视传媒� is going into southern corporate profits? The Yukon Employees Union recently published a side-by-side comparison of how much it costs to pay an employee versus an agency.

According to their report, in 2024, the Yukon government will pay $34.60-$43.80 per hour for a unionized licenced practical nurse (LPN) employed under their collective agreement. They will pay $50.00-$110.00 per hour for an LPN through an agency.

The GNWT has been very cagey about publicizing its own numbers on agency nurses, and itSA国际影视传媒檚 easy to guess why SA国际影视传媒� our government, which is constantly claiming to be cash poor, seems fine with NTHSSA pouring millions of public dollars into the pockets of southern corporations. Not a good look for a government that tried to sell us on a SA国际影视传媒渇iscally responsibleSA国际影视传媒� budget this spring.

This is how the privatization of healthcare starts: allowing working conditions to deteriorate to the point where staffing and service levels are so low that there is no other choice but to contract out the work.

As a public sector union, weSA国际影视传媒檝e seen this pattern before across Canada and here in the NWT SA国际影视传媒� governments purposely kneecapping sectors of the public service to publicly justify their privatization.

Our members are very worried that the territorial government is willing to go down this road, while not being open and transparent with regular MLAs or the public that this is their intention.

The UNW has been fighting for NWT healthcare for decades, but the GNWT is upping the ante. Our healthcare workers will continue to fight, regardless of their fatigue, and our other members will fight with them.

We hope that the public they serve is willing to stand with them and hold our government accountable for how it spends public money.