Nunavut seeking proposals for elder care facilities: health minister

GN rejects Kugluktuk hamlet’s proposal for elders’ care centre

By JANE GEORGE

Here's an artist's rendering of how the long-term care facility in Kugluktuk would look like from above. The building would have what they called a “race-track” shape, with rooms, painted in soothing green shades, spanning off a common hallway. The round shape of the building would allow the centre’s residents to walk around in a supervised way, while its four sections or pods could be easily separated in case of an outbreak of a contagious illness. (HANDOUT PHOTO)


Here’s an artist’s rendering of how the long-term care facility in Kugluktuk would look like from above. The building would have what they called a “race-track” shape, with rooms, painted in soothing green shades, spanning off a common hallway. The round shape of the building would allow the centre’s residents to walk around in a supervised way, while its four sections or pods could be easily separated in case of an outbreak of a contagious illness. (HANDOUT PHOTO)

Several questions about elder care, and the fate of a hamlet proposal to build such a facility in Kugluktuk, surfaced on the first day of the Nunavut legislature's spring sitting, on Thursday, May 24. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)


Several questions about elder care, and the fate of a hamlet proposal to build such a facility in Kugluktuk, surfaced on the first day of the Nunavut legislature’s spring sitting, on Thursday, May 24. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

The Government of Nunavut plans to issue a request for proposals for groups interested in building and running facilities to provide care to the territory’s growing number of elders.

Nunavut Health Minister Pat Angnakak said that issuing a request for tenders is the most transparent way to issue contracts for elder-care centres.

Speaking Thursday in the Nunavut legislature, Agnakak called taking care of elders in Nunavut “a priority of this government.”

“We’re just doing the best we can to try to fast-forward this process because we don’t want our elders to continue to be going down south,” Angnakak said in response to questions from Kugluktuk MLA Mila Kamingoak.

Kamingoak wanted to know why the GN dismissed the Kugluktuk hamlet’s proposal to build a $21.8 million elders’ facility, which would have depended on a GN fee-for-service arrangement to help pay the building’s mortgage.

“I feel elders should be taken care of in our own communities,” Kamingoak said in the legislature.

“Can the minister clearly explain how her department can enter into a fee-for-service contract with such facilities as Embassy West in Ottawa to provide long-term care services to Nunavut elders but not be willing to enter into similar contracts with northern entities which would allow elders to remain in Nunavut?”

Kugluktuk has no continuing long-term care centre, so elders requiring high levels of care sometimes end up in Ottawa, about 3,300 kilometres to the southeast.

The long-term care centre promoters envisioned the Kugluktuk facility as territorial, although Kugluktuk, with a population of about 1,500, has 80 elders over the age of 65, out of 235 in the Kitikmeot region and 1,360 Nunavut-wide.

The hamlet wanted its 24-bed long-term continuing care centre to take in elders requiring extended care or suffering from dementia, who are now sent out of the territory for care.

The hamlet had already prepared the site for the building and committed $1 million towards the $5.34-million down payment they needed for a pre-construction mortgage.

The plan was to start construction this August and complete the building for 2019.

The hamlet had also prepared a long-term fee-for-service contract for the GN to look at, but the deal did not go ahead, much to Kamingoak’s frustration.

This contract would have allowed the GN to agree to subsidize the centre’s beds over 20 years—the period of time that it would take to pay off the building’s mortgage.

But Angnakak said the GN determined that going to an RFP was the best path.

“We want to do it right and we didn’t want to make mistakes,” she said, encouraging the hamlet to respond to the RFP after it’s issued.

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