As part of the recruitment and retention strategy, one thing we are trying to do more and more is inform the nurses about the working conditions and the type of work they will be asked to do in the communities. We want to make that when we invest in training and integrating these people into the health team, they will stay in the business, and there won't be surprises for them up there.

We're spending a fair bit of energy up front to describe the situation. These are locations with really small teams. They're not part of large teams where they will have connections. There are infrastructure challenges in the communities in terms of access. These conditions need to be well known. This is an important component of the strategy.

There has been an important reaction from our marketing campaign. A lot of people have come to us to ask for information about this program, these services, and how this will work up there. We are really confident that we will be able to attract a new group of workers.

Within this, to address one of the issues around scope of practice, we are also trying to integrate nurse practitioners as part of the team. One of the issues with scope of practice was that our model was relying a lot on registered nurses. Nurse practitioners have the ability to perform a larger span of duties and support registered nurses to do more work as well, addressing a portion of the issue with scope of practice. I'm happy to say that in Ontario, for example, we're trying to recruit 10 more nurse practitioners to place them in remote northern communities in Ontario that will address that.

This is also about reinforcing the team, creating a cement for people to want to stay in the community in these health teams, because they will be better supported. In all nursing stations, whether in Ontario, Manitoba, or the other provinces, there are arrangements in place with physician services. While nurses there are isolated physically and in really small teams, they always have access to a physician or a nurse practitioner for consultation, helping with the scope of practice. We are trying to clarify these roles so that people are less afraid to come and work at Health Canada and will understand that they are not left alone in the field with such challenging and demanding work.

Robin, would you like to add a little bit on where we are with the recruitment strategy at this time?

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