The Northwest Territories is seeing a small but meaningful easing in nursing shortages, the territory's health authority says — yet physician vacancies and dependence on temporary staff remain a persistent challenge for northern health services.
Progress in nursing, ongoing physician gaps
A spokesperson for the Northwest Territories Health and Social Services Authority said focused efforts on training, recruitment and retention, together with an expansion of virtual care, have helped lower the vacancy rate for front-line registered nurses to its lowest level in more than two years.
The authority reports it has budgeted for more than 358 full-time equivalent nursing positions for the coming year. Despite that allocation and the recent improvement in vacancies, officials stress staffing pressures persist — particularly when it comes to recruiting physicians.
"Additional resources have been devoted to physician recruitment and retention efforts. Our continuing goal is to have as many of these filled as possible,"
The authority said gaps for physicians remain high and are being covered in large part by locum doctors who travel into the territory for short-term assignments. Locums are typically compensated at higher rates and do not receive the same benefits as physicians hired into full-time local positions.
Service impacts and contingency measures
Reliance on agency staff is not a hypothetical risk: temporary closures and intermittent service reductions in 2024 and 2025 affected obstetrics in the Beaufort Delta, forcing some pregnant patients to travel significant distances for care. In some cases, that meant air travel of over 1,000 kilometres or road trips of approximately 3,000 kilometres to reach facilities in Yellowknife.
At Stanton Territorial Hospital in Yellowknife, the emergency department introduced a controversial "name-your-price" bidding approach last summer to fill physician shifts after other staffing options were considered. Authorities weighed several contingency strategies, including arranging back-to-back shifts for existing staff, implementing virtual physician support in the emergency room and, as a last resort, temporary service closures.
- Nursing: Vacancy rate at a two-year low; more than 358 FTE positions budgeted.
- Physicians: Persistent high vacancy rates; recruitment focus on full-time hires.
- Temporary staff: Heavy reliance on locums and agency nurses to maintain critical services.
Context across the North
National data from Statistics Canada for 2025 show the three territories — Northwest Territories, Yukon and Nunavut — together had the highest health-care occupation vacancy rate in Canada at 7.8 per cent. That broader northern trend underlines recruitment difficulties that are specific to remote regions and smaller populations.
| Item | Figure/Note |
|---|---|
| Budgeted nursing FTEs | 358+ |
| Territories' health-care vacancy rate (2025, StatsCan) | 7.8% |
| Travel distance for some Beaufort Delta patients | Over 1,000 km by air or about 3,000 km by road to Yellowknife |
Health officials say recruitment remains a priority, with additional resources directed toward attracting and keeping physicians and nurses in the territory. For residents, the changes may bring gradual improvements, but short-term reliance on temporary staff is likely to continue until more permanent hires arrive.
Further announcements about recruiting initiatives or changes to service delivery are expected from the health authority as it pursues its stated goal of filling as many positions as possible.
