The KIVALLIQ Health Centre

I have shown and talked about the various commercial things in town but until yesterday I didn’t have an opportunity to show the health centre. I guess it would be more realistic to call it a health showplace.

This is the third health centre to be built in Rankin Inlet. The others, I believe, had been built in the late sixties and early eighties by the Northwest Territory government, who at that time, were the central government in charge of health. The last one had a fire, started in the boiler room, which cause extensive damage just as our current centre was nearing completion. You can imagine that with no heat in a building this far north, severe consequences occur. I’ll have more on that tomorrow.

Anyways the good news was that they were almost finished building and three years ago this facility officially opened. You’ll notice from the accompanying photos that I will post today and tomorrow there are many features that some of us are less than familiar with. First the building stands on the top of a knoll with lots of drainage all around it. There are no basements here (One of the local fellows asked me “who would want to live in the ground anyways?”).

In the main heat of the summer you can dig about four feet until you come to permafrost. You then wait a week until it melts and then go further in. Hence there is a lot of heaving and shifting in their structures. The designs reflect that. The next most striking thing about the outside is the size of windows. They seem small and are for a very good reason. You loose heat from those components so this reduces heat loss. The building is huge.

We have the only elevator on the west coast of Hudson’s Bay here in Nunavut. There are usually up to three midwives working from the centre with a birthing centre onsite and the midwives travel out to the surrounding communities as well. The Laboratory has three techs, xray has one, and ultrasound is currently looking for a full time person. They come in for a one to two week stint at the moment.

The building is two story and has a main entrance in front and a staff entrance located off the rear parking area. The parking area is equipped with plugs so those with vehicles can keep the oil warm. The outside entrances have metal steps and ramps for handicapped access. The tops of the steps allow snow and ice to fall through so that you always have a footing. The building is raised so that snow can blow away from it rather than building up at the entrances and a moat like area can fill with the blowing snow as well. There is a rampart across the ambulance entrance.

The heated ambulance bay that is equipped with no less than four snow shovels so that the area can be cleared quickly if needed. We have a loading dock for things being shipped to receiving and stores. We have a Central Service area and a staff lounge of course. Our television is perched on the wall and doesn’t seem to wander as in some places, I’ve worked. Currently, we do not have inpatients. Anyone requiring care and treatment not available here, or hospitalization, is shipped out to either Churchill or Winnipeg by Kivillaq Air, the medevac service. The option to transport to Iqaluit across the bay is used occassionaly. We have a morgue and the nurses work as the attendant if required.

My first patient was a chest and the second a person was injured in a dog sled race. This week I’ve done hips, knees, hands, and an assortment of other things including a finger on a guy who cut some tendons while butchering his caribou in November. I’ve done a set of facial bones who’s owner was immediately transferred to the plastics on call at the Winnpeg Health Sciences Centre. My Friday callback snowmobiler was medevacued to the ortho on call in Winnpeg that same night. Sometimes I get the impression that health care here has a higher priority but, hey, this is the north!