HAY RIVER
On Aug. 1, the Northwest Territories Health and Social Services Authority began operations but without Hay River at least for now.

Glen Abernethy: minister says GNWT hopes that Hay River will eventually join the new Northwest Territories Health and Social Services Authority. - NNSL file photo

It is still the hope of Health and Social Services Minister Glen Abernethy that Hay River will eventually be brought into the new system.

"The Hay River situation is unique because the employees of the Hay River Health and Social Services Authority aren't employees of the Government of the Northwest Territories like most of the other health and social services employees across the Northwest Territories," said Abernethy.

The workers have their own collective agreement, different terms of employment and a different pension plan.

"So we've been doing work to try to quantify what it will cost to bring the Hay River employees into the public service so that we can truly integrate them and have them as part of a collaborative team for delivery of health care across the territories," said Abernethy. "We've been looking at the pension costs. We've been looking at the other costs to bring them in. There's going to be some serious one-time costs. But I've made the commitment that we're going to do that work."

However, the work has not yet begun while a number of collective agreements are being negotiated.

"We need to know what they look like before we can actually figure out what our costs are going to be and do negotiations with the union responsible for the Hay River employees," said Abernethy, adding that includes a sense of what pension costs are going to be.

'We want to make sure it's done fairly ...'

The GNWT collective agreement expired April 1 and the Hay River agreement expired March 31.

The minister said the GNWT has made a commitment to bring the Hay River health and social services employees into the territorial public service and to bring Hay River into the single authority.

"But we want to make sure it's done fairly and respectfully of the staff in the authority and we need to be able to understand the one-time cost of doing this," he said. "That's why it's taking some time. We're still committed to it, tough."

Abernethy could not say when it might happen.

"It's taking longer than anticipated to get a real sense of the true cost of bringing over the pension," he said. "We want to start in the life of this government. We would like to complete it in the life of this government. But it really depends on the cost."

The minister said that pretty much every year the territorial government has to put additional dollars into the Hay River pension plan, usually anywhere from $500,000 to $1 million.

Erin Griffiths, the CEO of the Hay River Health and Social Services Authority, said it has a unique history of being founded by the Pentecostal Church's Subarctic Mission.

"We are still our own separate legal entity. We have our own collective agreement," she said. "We are funded through the GNWT but due to our history in Hay River and how we've managed health care and social services in Hay River, we do continue to be on our own."

Griffiths said the authority hopes to become part of the new territorial authority, although there is no estimate of how long that might take.

"We are not sure of the timeline on this at all," she said.

Griffiths said the creation of the new territorial authority, and Hay River's absence from it, will not affect health care in the community.

"Our clients will not see any different level of care at all," she said. "They'll see the same level of care that they're receiving today."

The new health authority will be made up of the Beaufort Delta, Sahtu, Dehcho, Fort Smith, Yellowknife, and Stanton Territorial health authorities. It will administer the design and delivery of territorial health programs, along with operation of territorial facilities.

Under the new system, seven-person Regional Wellness Councils will represent the Hay River area, Fort Smith, Sahtu, Dehcho, Beaufort Delta and Yellowknife area.

The chair of each Regional Wellness Council will sit on the Northwest Territories Health and Social Services Leadership Council, along with the chair of the Tlicho Community Services Agency. They will serve as the board of management for the new health authority.

For Hay River, that means the public administrator of the health authority will be included on the board of management.

"We're trying to bring in some of the benefits of the single authority so that the people of Hay River can have seamless care," said Abernethy.

The new territorial authority is designed to help break down systemic barriers to efficient and effective care and service delivery, and build the foundation of a system with improved accountability and performance.

The Tlicho Community Services Agency also remains outside the new territorial authority.

We welcome your opinions. Click here to e-mail a letter to the editor.