Paul Bickford
Northern News Services

Hay River (Sep 16/02) - Health-care workers offered a few gifts to Health Minister Michael Miltenberger last week to help express their displeasure over the cancellation of the transfer of responsibility for health care in their region.

Last April, Miltenberger announced the plan to transfer control of the Hay River Community Health board to the GNWT. Similar to the transfer for health-care workers in Fort Resolution and Lutsel K'e, the move would ensure pay equity, and put all NWT health care workers under the same employer.

But last week, Miltenberger cancelled the transfer, claiming it was too costly. On Thursday, when Miltenberger met with workers, he was greeted with a calculator to help with number crunching.

There was also a pink piggy bank containing 166 pennies, one for each of the workers.

And Miltenberger was greeted by bags of Monopoly money, mocking his earlier statement that there were bags of money for the transfer.

The minister appeared to take the sarcasm in stride.

He apologized for the difficulties the cancellation caused the workers, but said, "The issue that happened here is very simply a money issue."

The bags of money that he thought would be sufficient turned out to be "more like baggies," he said.

What had originally been estimated as a $900,000 transfer, actually would have cost about $3 million, he said.

"I had to make the hard choice and I did that."

However, he admitted the workers' frustration, anger and cynicism are not without justification.

The main underestimated cost, he said, was the expense of transferring the workers' pensions. It's been estimated that the cost of moving the pensions could run to $4.5 million.

Workers expressed concern to Miltenberger that it will now be impossible to reach pay parity with the rest of health-care workers in the rest of the NWT.

They are also worried that the Hay River board will be at a disadvantage for retention and recruitment of staff if the wage differences persist.

Miltenberger noted the worker's contract will expire at the end of September and they will be going into contract negotiations. He pro-mised the GNWT will play a role in the negotiations.

The workers also are worried about the level of funding the Hay River board will now receive because of the cancelled transfer.

Miltenberger said Hay River will continue to be an integral part of the health-care system.

"This does not diminish Hay River's role. It does not limit our funding."

The minister said the status quo persists, although the workers appeared puzzled about what the status quo actually means.

The workers said they were frustrated that they had spent this year working on committees to prepare for the transfer.

"Then all of a sudden the train hit the wall," said Vivian Stevely, president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada local that represents the workers.

A transfer would have moved the workers from PSAC to the Union of Northern Workers, which represents the majority of GNWT workers.

At last week's meeting, Mayor Duncan McNeill said, "What these people are being put through, Mr. Minister, is not acceptable."