SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - A Northern School of Dental Therapy could be on the horizon. The territorial government recently initiated a feasibility study to see how – and if – a dental school North of 60 could work.

"We're doing a feasibility study and what that means is we're trying to have proponents tell us whether or not a school would be feasible," said Damien Healy, manager of communications with Health and Social Services.

He added until the study is complete "it wouldn't really be fair to say yes we're going ahead to do it, or no we're not."

The study will explore areas such as costs for the facility, possible office space in Yellowknife and how many students the school will require to make it successful.

And while the school is far from a sure thing, one thing is certain: there are a shortage of dental services across the territory.

A Northern dental school could fix that, said Healy.

"There's a gap. There's people that need to see the dental therapists, so we think it would be better to train them up here and have them ready to go," he said.

He added such a solution is similar to the one the territory used to address nursing shortages: train needed professionals locally.

"Basically, we know there is a demand. The communities require them (dental therapists). We do visits all the time," said Healy.

A dental school in the North is not a new idea.

Decades ago, the model for Dental Therapy in Canada and the National School of Dental Therapy were designed to combat the lack of practising dentists in the North. Until 1982 the National School of Dental Therapy (NSDT) was located in Fort Smith. It moved that year to Prince Albert, Sask.

As a result, over time the school's attention shifted to a more regional Saskatchewan-Manitoba focus from a pan-territorial one.

According to the GNWT's Pan Territorial Oral Health Initiative, further changes to the NSDT curriculum and the level of graduates' clinical experience has left graduates under-prepared for remote practice, leading to a steady decline of dental therapists in the North.

The feasibility report is expected by early January, 2010.