Yellowknife building will have play areas, dining room, lounge

CAMBRIDGE BAY – News that a new Kitikmeot patient boarding home is finally in the works for Yellowknife drew loud applause at the Kitikmeot Inuit Association's recent annual general meeting in Cambridge Bay.

The new Yellowknife residence means patients and escorts from the Kitikmeot region will no longer endure overcrowding or episodes such as the 2006 outbreak of mold at the Lena Pederson boarding home.

The $6-million, 56-bed Larga Yellowknife complex, located at the corner of Franklin and Matonnabee streets in the city's downtown, should be open by next December.

The building will be much larger than the current 43-bed patient boarding home, which regularly sends an overflow of about 10 patients into local hotels.

Larga Yellowknife will have three stories, with play areas on each floor, in addition to offices, a dining room, lounge and outside sitting area.

Like the other Larga patient boarding homes in Edmonton, Winnipeg and Ottawa, Larga Yellowknife will be built and managed by a joint venture between Nunasi Corp., which is owned by the Inuit of Nunavut, and a regional Inuit association – in this case, the KIA.

The joint venture took the boarding home contract away from T.C. Enterprises Ltd., headed by Tony Chang, a well-connected Yellowknife businessman.

"People used to complain about the boarding home in previous years and I had to say we didn't hold the contract," said Charlie Lyall, Kitikmeot Corp. president.

Larga Yellowknife has a multi-million-dollar, 20-year contract for the Kitikmeot region from the Government of Nunavut. The contract calls for the construction of a new boarding home and providing patient services.

In addition to room and board, Larga Yellowknife will provide airport pick-up, transportation to medical appointments, trips to malls and even the delivery of meals to the hospital, when required.

"We provide everything that the hospital doesn't provide when they come to town. It's a full service deal," said Fred Hunt, the chief executive officer of Nunasi Corp.

For years, the GN dragged its heels on building a new patient boarding home in Yellowknife because the Kitikmeot regional health centre in Cambridge, which opened in 2005, was supposed to reduce the need for patient care in Yellowknife.

That hasn't happened and the health centre remains understaffed and unable to fulfill its plans to provide more in-patient and maternity care.

Yellowknife continues to require 9,000 and 10,000 bed nights a year for patients and escorts.

Another new Larga patient boarding home, the $8-million 80-bed Larga Baffin, will open in Ottawa this spring.

When the new residences in Yellowknife and Ottawa are finished, Nunasi and its partners will have a total of $28 million invested in patient boarding homes.