Latest news with #NTHSSA
Hamilton Spectator
2 days ago
- Health
- Hamilton Spectator
NTHSSA planning pop up immunization clinics to combat measles
Northwest Territories Health and Social Services Authority is planning 'pop up clinics' around the territory to provide measles vaccines to those who need it. An announcement was released May 23. 'NTHSSA remains committed to supporting this response and is actively planning clinics focused on the MMR vaccine, to ensure eligible residents who are not immunized, can protect themselves from potential exposures in the future,' said the unattributed press release. 'The NTHSSA also appreciates the cooperation and patience from the public as staff worked to mitigate further exposure of the virus.' No dates or locations have been announced to date, but NTHSSA is directing people to for information on when and where the clinics will be held. Officials also thanked Yellowknife Public Health staff for efforts to to immunize students and staff at number of schools in the Yellowknife area following the closure of Weledeh Catholic School and St. Pat's High School on May 5 following a confirmed measles exposure. 'Their rapid response has played a crucial role in helping to curb the spread of the virus and highlights the often unseen but vital work being done behind the scenes to safeguard the health and well-being of our community,' says the release. 'This includes health care staff who were redeployed to support a large volume of immunization requests received within the first 24 hours of the Public Health Advisory, as well as staff who worked behind the scenes to quickly stand up emergency management measures.' Measles, also known as rubeola, is a highly contagious disease that can have serious complications for children, pregnant women and people who are immunocompromised. Symptoms can appear anywhere from one to three weeks after exposure and complications can range from pneumonia to encephalitis, or swelling of the brain, which can lead to seizures, brain damage and even death. Symptoms of measles include high fever, a cough and runny nose, red and sore eyes and a red blotchy rash that starts on the face and spreads down the body. It is spread through the air by coughing or sneezing, and can also be transmitted through saliva by kissing. The virus can linger in the air for up to two hours after someone coughs and is most contagious before symptoms appear. Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .
Hamilton Spectator
30-05-2025
- Health
- Hamilton Spectator
Health care premiums not the solution to NWT's failing system, says MLA
Range Lake MLA Kieron Testart says plans by Northwest Territories Health and Social Services Authority (NTHSSA) to explore potential user fees and premiums for health care services is going in the wrong direction. On May 16, the seven-page public administrator's work plan was released. It detailed what NTHSSA public administrator Dan Florizone has done since he was appointed on Dec. 16, 2024, and provided a timeline for several projects. Those included developing a proposal on how to bring services closer to small communities by November of this year, streamlining the medical travel process and establishing an employee acquisition plan by June. It also calls for a review of budgets and a survey of potential revenue sources, 'including supporting the establishment of income assessment and fee collection structures, as applicable' by December. NNSL Media reached out to NTHSSA for clarification on what fee collection structures would look like in practice. 'As part of the expenditure reduction plan, the Public Administrator has directed NTHSSA to work with the Department of Health and Social Services to review options related to user fees and health care premiums,' said Krystal Pidborochynski, NTHSSA's communications and public affairs director in response. 'The aim is to reduce the projected deficit while prioritizing the essential programs and services that residents, especially those in smaller regions and communities, rely on. 'The NTHSSA has a responsibility to manage its limited resources responsibly. Without an increase in funding – including for example those provided through the Government of Canada for the Medical Travel and Non-Insured Health Benefits (NIHB) Programs – the NTHSSA needs to make difficult decisions to ensure the long-term sustainability and health of the organization.' Testart said most people in the territory, even many well-paid government employees, are already effectively living paycheque to paycheque and adding more costs to their monthly budgets could push them to the breaking point. Instead, he called on the GNWT to take the fight to Ottawa, particularly surrounding medical travel and NIHB, which he said the federal government should be funding. 'There's a big portion of that which isn't being covered by the federal government,' he said. 'So there is a role to play for Ottawa to increase the revenue. But if we're serious about that side of the issue, we should be playing hardball with the federal government and basically telling them 'If you're not going to cover these services, neither are we — and you've got a year to sort this out.' 'The NIHB program should be funded by Ottawa and current the NWT subsidizes that program. It is a problem that needs to be solved — we have a new government, we have a new focus on the North and a Northern prime minister, so the timing is right to have that conversation. Don't pussyfoot around, take bold action and get their attention. If you keep doing what you've been doing for the last 10 years or more, probably since the last NIHB and medical travel agreements were signed, we'll continue to wait. We don't have time to keep bleeding money when Ottawa is not keeping up with its responsibilities to Northerners and, more importantly, honouring its treaty obligations to Indigenous people in Northern Canada.' NTHSSA should be looking towards its upper management when looking for cost savings, said Testart, rather than targeting the end user for revenue. He repeated his call for higher compensation for medical staff in the NWT to cover the higher cost of living and the remote nature of the work. He said discussions about 'slaying the deficit' should take backseat to improving health care delivery, noting NTHSSA has been operating at a loss since its inception. 'We need to create an advantage up here, making people pay more for health care is not going to do that,' he said. 'If that means our health care system is more expensive then so be it, but right now it's expensive and its failing.' Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .
CBC
17-05-2025
- Health
- CBC
Health staff gave up long weekend plans to keep Yellowknife ER open, official says
Social Sharing The public administrator of the N.W.T. Health and Social Services Authority (NTHSSA) says Yellowknife's emergency department will remain open over long weekend because health-care workers adjusted their vacation plans. The acknowledgement came during a public briefing for a legislative committee meeting on Friday. It was a chance for MLAs to question the health minister and Dan Florizone, the NTHSSA public administrator, on an action plan for the territory's beleaguered health-care system. Northwest Territories doctors have been vocal in recent weeks about staffing challenges so severe they're not sure how Stanton Territorial Hospital's emergency room will function. Florizone told MLAs at Friday's meeting that the emergency room will be staffed this weekend "because of the goodwill of the emergency room doctors and the staff who have cancelled their plans and adjusted. "I can tell you that this summer and this period is worse than we've ever experienced… but we're going to work really hard, that everyday we get a bit better." 'Those doors will never close' The meeting started with a presentation from Florizone about how he planned to improve the territory's health-care system. It was followed by questions from MLAs. Yellowknife MLA Julian Morse asked whether Florizone had listened to another committee meeting held late last month with members of the N.W.T. Medical Association, where physicians described the dire situation facing the territory. Florizone said he was surprised by the comments as he says NTHSSA officials have been meeting regularly with the N.W.T. Medical Association and are working on shared priorities. Health Minister Lesa Semmler also pushed back on the suggestion that the emergency department might close because of staffing. "Statements like that put the fear in our residents," she said. "Those doors will never be closed and there will be support and there are many contingency plans to do that." Incredible sacrifices amid systemic failures, MLA says Later in the briefing on Friday, MLA Shauna Morgan again raised the subject of staffing in the Stanton emergency room and said the physicians keeping it open are already being overworked. "Ever since COVID, we all like to talk about how health-care workers are heroes and they do amazing work and the sacrifices they make," she said. "We have frontline workers who are working and making incredible sacrifices despite the systemic failures around them." Morgan says she understands that the health department and NTHSSA don't want to alarm the public, but she said pushing overworked health-care workers to the breaking point isn't a viable solution. "What I want to see in these strategies and in the actions being taken, first and foremost, is that we stop assuming that staff will always take the extra load, they'll take those extra shifts, they'll not take these vacations," Morgan said. It was Morgan's comments that prompted Florizone to acknowledge the workers keeping the emergency room open over the long weekend. 52 small improvements Florizone also talked about his role as public administrator and what he and his team were working toward accomplishing. He told MLAs that his role as public administrator is temporary and once changes are enacted he will leave the position and a new governance structure will be established. He also spoke about a trip he took to Jean Marie River First Nation to see the health facility there. He described it as an eye-opening visit and said his priority is to ensure people in communities like Jean Marie River can access better health care, closer to home. Florizone said they are also taking suggestions from frontline staff and other organizations, like the medical association, about improving the system. He said the plan will be to listen to a suggestion for a small improvement and incorporate it to see how it works. Florizone says the goal is to make 52 small improvements in 52 weeks.
Hamilton Spectator
15-05-2025
- Health
- Hamilton Spectator
NWT nurses need higher pay, says MLA
A nursing shortage continues in the Northwest Territories and one MLA says the solution is offering higher wages. Over the past two years, staffing shortages have forced the closure of key health services in the NWT, including several closures of the obstetrics unit in Inuvik. Noting the country is experiencing a nursing shortage across the board, a spokesperson for Northwest Territories Health and Social Services Authority [NTHSSA] told NNSL Media that the NWT government filled 340.3 full-time equivalencies out of 360 front-line nursing positions budgeted for in 2024-25. 'Our continuing goal is to have as many of these filled as possible,' said NTHSSA communications director Krystal Pidborochynski. 'The NTHSSA may sometimes use agency nurses to fill gaps to prevent closure of essential services. The number changes depending on need. Currently the NTHSSA is using obstetrics nurses at Stanton Territorial Hospital and Inuvik Regional Hospital to fill gaps, as required.' Range Lake MLA Kieron Testart said the GNWT needs to start listening to what the College of Nurses (College and Association of Nurses of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut) keeps telling them. The use of agency nurses, he noted, was particularly demoralizing for full-time staff and was pushing nurses away. 'Agency nurses are very well compensated,' he said. 'I think we should join in with other provinces and phase them out by 2026 and work on expanding our pool of locums. 'More importantly, training Indigenous and Northern nurses to stay in the NWT — we should be spending out money on the nurses who live here. We shouldn't be flying in private nurses who criss-cross across the country and get paid sometimes double what our staff are making. That's completely unacceptable.' Testart added that he's spoken to nurses who have been denied leave simply because there wasn't enough staff on hand to allow them to have time off. He said since the November 2023 territorial election, he's spoken to numerous nurses contending with low wages, extremely long hours and difficult conditions who simply had to stop working because they were burned out. 'I've seen nurses leave,' he said. 'Not just one, or two or three — but close to a dozen. That's a significant loss to the community. 'They're not being heard. They're not being properly compensated. We're not incentivizing front-line work.' A regularly updated action plan, similar to what Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston has done since being elected, would help restore confidence in the territorial health authority, he added. Another area he suggested should be changed is how work schedules are handled — in most of the country a special agency oversees schedules, but in the NWT the task falls on nurses to organize themselves. Testart likened the situation to a supply and demand situation, noting the shortage of nurses simply means individual practitioners are simply worth more. 'When you have a supply shortage, the price goes up,' he said. 'If there's a shortage of nurses, you pay them more — and you find ways to do that.' May 12–18 is National Nursing Week. FACT FILE How NWT nurse wages compare to the rest of Canada
CBC
13-05-2025
- Health
- CBC
N.W.T.'s medical record system under the microscope after 2 reported cases of snooping
Medical records are among the most sensitive pieces of information that a government agency keeps on citizens. But these records are not impervious to snooping, as evidenced by two distinct cases reported this year by the Northwest Territories Information and Privacy Commissioner. The privacy commissioner issues reports on cases in which an investigation yields evidence of intentional and unauthorized access to private health information, commonly known as "snooping." This year, commissioner Andrew Fox publicly reported two distinct cases of snooping in electronic medical records. They both involved employees of the Northwest Territories Health and Social Services Authority (NTHSSA). Taken together, the cases illustrate vulnerabilities in the NTHSSA's electronic medical record (EMR) system. According to at least one expert, the EMR system doesn't appear to meet the highest ethical standards for patient privacy. An EMR is a digital version of a patient's medical history. It can include things like test results, X-rays and prescriptions. One of the cases published online this year by the privacy commissioner involves an instance in 2021 of an administrative clerk with NTHSSA deliberately opened a person's EMR and relayed some of their private health information to another person. The clerk did this "without consent and without lawful authority," wrote Fox. The clerk admitted to wrongdoing during an NTHSSA investigation, and was fired some months later. Fox called this a "particularly egregious, intentional privacy breach." He said the health authority's response was appropriate, but that the agency should have revoked the employee's EMR access as soon as it confirmed the breach. The health authority uses "role-based access" to the EMR system, meaning an employee's access is limited to what is necessary for their role. Fox noted that on occasions when the clerk was assigned to other roles, the NTHSSA didn't restrict her EMR access in accordance with those roles. 'I felt incredibly violated' The second case published this year involved two NTHSSA employees who, on multiple occasions, snooped in the medical records of a patient who wasn't in their care. The employees were siblings and the patient had previously been in a relationship with one of them. It wasn't until the patient filed a "record of activity" request in July of 2023 — a report on who had looked at her EMR — that she learned of the breach. "I was disgusted. I felt incredibly violated," said Maryse Gravelle, the patient who had her medical records snooped. "Our financial institutions have software in place to identify when there's a fraudulent charge possibly being made on our accounts," she said. "How can a banking institution have those sorts of safeguards in place, but there's no alerts on hospital software, on emergency medical records, to alert when there's a suspicious action in somebody's chart?" In his report, the privacy commissioner said the siblings' jobs granted them "broad access" to the EMR system. Their motivation for opening the patient's records seems to have been "curiosity proceeding from a personal relationship." Fox called the privacy breach a "deliberate and serious breach of trust," and said it caused the patient "significant distress." Both siblings admitted to misconduct, were suspended without pay for 10 days and had their EMR access revoked for at least 18 months. The health authority is required by law to notify a patient about a breach of their medical records "as soon as reasonably possible." In a statement, NTHSSA CEO Kim Riles said the health authority must investigate all reports of privacy breaches, and upon completion of an investigation, notify the affected people. "At times, the investigation process can take a significant amount of time," wrote Riles. She added the NTHSSA is reviewing its practices and "has committed to ensuring the notification occurs as soon as a privacy breach is confirmed, regardless of whether a full investigation has been completed." She said the agency accepted the privacy commissioner's recommendations and continues to improve and update mandatory training. Auditing EMRs 'a real challenge' Livia Kurinska-Hrdlickova is the territory's chief health privacy officer. She said routine audits check for suspicious activity in the EMR system, which if found, is flagged to the health authority. But Fox told CBC that auditing EMRs for instances of unauthorized access is "a real challenge." "If you looked at some random sample of employees looking at health records, there's really nothing that you could infer from the fact that a lab assistant looked at someone's medical record," he said. "You couldn't tell whether that was authorized or not." Neither of the two snooping cases Fox published this year were flagged by a routine audit. Kurinska-Hrdlickova explained that an employee with role-based access to the EMR system has gone through mandatory privacy training, and taken an oath of confidentiality. They need a patient's first and last name, and their date of birth or health-care number, to open their medical record. The system also relies on trust that employees with access will only use the EMR system when it's required for their work on a specific case. "Any system across Canada is not perfect," said Kurinska-Hrdlickova. "You never go to a zero risk, right? Because that's impossible." EMR system not structured 'according to ethics': expert As Fox noted, NTHSSA extended trust to the employees with EMR access, and the employees breached that trust. Eike Kluge, a University of Victoria biomedical ethics professor, said in the case of the siblings, the EMR system shouldn't have allowed them to open Gravelle's record in the first place. "There should be a challenge. Justify who you are and what right you have to access that record," he said. Kluge said the system shouldn't just flag improper access, it should prevent it. If the system isn't blocking improper access, "it's not properly structured," he said. "Certainly not according to ethics." Kurinska-Hrdlickova disagreed with Kluge's assertion and said the territory's EMR system complies with territorial privacy legislation. She also said the territory's EMR system is set to be replaced in the near future, and that the new system will have even stronger privacy protections. There isn't readily available data on the prevalence of medical record snooping in the N.W.T. or in Canada.
