by Jeff Colbourne
Northern News Services

RANKIN INLET (June 11/97) - It's been a long time coming, but Rankin Inlet will soon have a hospital.

"The thinking is to have (health board) chairs focus on the facility planning before Nunavut happens," said Bette Palfrey, chair of the Keewatin Regional Health Board.

The expanded multi-care health facility will allow the repatriation of services from Churchill, Man.

There will be an expanded ability to perform some surgery, X-rays and lab services will be available and there will be the ability to keep sick children in the region.

By treating patients in the North the board expects to get a bigger bang for its buck. Last year alone, the board spent $6 million on medical travel to the south. It wants to use these fund in the hospital.

Palfrey said according to an economic impact analysis report done by the board, an expanded health facility would be feasible to the region.

"What we're paying to put patients in Churchill, which I think is about $780 a day, and what we spend on sending people back and forth will pay for a facility here."

News about the health care facility in Rankin Inlet came about as a recommendation contained in the Med-Emerg Report, commissioned by Health and Social Services Minster, Kelvin Ng.

The report also suggests using a mix of public and private funds to build the facility and get it operating.

"The part of the reason for the recommendations is they realized that this building is bursting at the seams," she said of the existing facility in Rankin Inlet.

"That site is not conducive to building anything else so it will go on a new site."

The hospital will be built near the bottom of the hill leading into Area 6 or Nuvuk.

"The hamlet has identified the land and set it aside three years ago and the geo-techs been done on it. So they're ready," she said.

When the facility is built -- Palfrey said she doesn't know how long it's going to take -- other Keewatin communities will have to use the hospital, much like they use Churchill's facility now.

There are intentions however, to expand health facilities and services in the other communities to go along with the new hospital.

"The plan is for some limited services at some of the other communities. It's difficult to say how it will work cause we’re in the process of redoing the nursing stations now," she said.

"With the amalgamation of health and social services we're hoping to put more multi-use facilities in the nursing stations."