Jennifer McPhee
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Sep 19/01) - The Department of Health and Social Services announced a plan Monday that includes cutting the number of regional health boards from nine to seven.

If approved by the legislative assembly, however, the seven reorganized boards will retain their decision-making powers.

Inuvik, the Dogrib and the Deh Cho will keep their boards, a new board will be created for the Sahtu and the South Slave, but the Lutsel K'e, Deninu and Hay River authorities will be dissolved.

Only Yellowknife and Fort Smith will retain community-specific boards.

After public consultation on the controversial report on delivery of health care in the NWT by Alberta consultant George Cuff, the department decided against a recommendation to strip regional boards of their decision-making powers.

"We have regional boards that have done extremely well," said Groenewegen. "It would be a shame to bring a close to their work in light of the eventuality of self-government."

However, the department plans to create an NWT Hospital and Health Services Authority, which will implement system-wide hospital planning and standardize the board-member selection process.

And to reduce competition among boards, a single employer will hire all health professionals.

Presently, each board recruits its own staff and employees wanting to transfer must quit one board and apply to another.

But Thebacha MLA Michael Miltenberger said the plan sounds fuzzy. "It is very vague," he said, noting it is unclear how communities such as Lutsel K'e fit into the plan.

"It raises more questions than answers," he added. "Either they are not prepared to tell us now or they have a tremendous amount of work to do in the next couple weeks."

Groenewegen said she will table a detailed plan to the legislative assembly in October in hopes the new boards can be in place by next April.