N.W.T. MLAs to ask auditor general to review territory's health authority

The Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly wants the auditor general of Canada to review the territory's health-care system and make recommendations for improvement. 

Frustrations with wait times, quality of care, and burnout among staff are ongoing issues that MLAs say aren't changing despite government town-hall meetings, committees and strategies. Members say the territory needs an outside perspective to create real change. 

Julian Morse, MLA for Frame Lake, said health-care professionals are telling him they feel their voices don't matter. 

"The fact that so many practitioners' frustrations with these problems had become so great that it caused them to either leave the system, or move somewhere else, or leave a career that they care about entirely, speaks to the seriousness of the issues," Morse said.  

Members voted Thursday in favour of the motion to ask for the audit, with all regular MLAs in support and all cabinet ministers abstaining. 

Range Lake MLA Kieron Testart introduced the motion, citing the Northwest Territories Health and Social Services Authority's (NTHSSA) growing deficit, the territory's increasing reliance on agency nurses, and services that are frequently reduced because of staffing shortages. He says the current situation is unsustainable.

When NTHSSA was established in 2016, it inherited a deficit of $51 million and in 2020 that had grown to $94 million. As of March 31, 2024, the authority's accumulated deficit stood at $272.9 million.

"We need to get to grips with this and I don't think we know how," Testart said.

The motion calls for a "performance audit" of the management of NTHSSA and its delivery of health care services. 

A performance audit typically assesses actual performance against goals and targets. The problem, according to Shauna Morgan, MLA for Yellowknife North, is that the N.W.T. health-care system struggles to set explicit goals. 

Morgan supported the motion and said she hopes the auditor general could evaluate the N.W.T.'s systems against national standards and look toward other models of health care in other remote and rural communities. 

Morgan also said that if the office of the auditor general accepts the request, it could take years and that the territory needs to continue its work on improving health care in the meantime.  

The motion comes on the heels of a report this week from the auditor general, looking into the territory's Stanton Territorial Hospital project. The report outlines how the project went hundreds of millions of dollars over budget and failed to document potential conflicts. The auditor general undertook that audit after N.W.T. MLAs passed a motion to request it, in March 2020. 

Audit 'not a silver bullet,' premier says

Premier R.J. Simpson, who abstained from this week's vote, warned that an audit provides recommendations but not necessarily change.

"It's not a silver bullet," he said.

He said the audit will require NTHSSA to assign staff who are already overburdened to "chase down a bunch of documents." 

Simpson also pointed out that the motion leaves out the Hay River Health and Social Services Authority and the Tłı̨chǫ Community Services Agency — which manages health and social programs for Behchokǫ̀, Whatı̀, Wekweètı̀ and Gamètı̀. That means the motion leaves out thousands of residents of the N.W.T., he said.

Simpson promoted the new health-care sustainability unit, tasked with finding efficiencies, as a team already embedded in the health-care system that can inform decision-makers.   

The office of the auditor general will now decide whether to take on the review. There is no timeline to make that decision.