Mayor seeks funding for improved care
Malcolm Gorrill
Northern News Services
Tuktoyaktuk (Dec 15/00) - Mayor Ernest Pokiak says having to send elders away to receive proper care is akin to sending children to residential schools.
Pokiak is seeking funds to hire local residents to provide level two care in an elders' facility to be built next year.
The building is designed for both level one, which allows elders to come and go, and level two for elders who require some care.
Each side of the building will have five rooms, with a common area, a kitchen, and an apartment for the facility manager.
He said it's important for Tuk residents to look after their own elders, and to keep them within their community. Two elders from Tuk are currently housed in Aklavik and the mayor said it's fine if elders want to live somewhere else.
But that it's not good if they have no choice, he said.
"The big thing about this is you're just reversing the roles. In the early days you took the kids away from their parents to go to school, residential schools," Pokiak said.
"But now we've got the older people, they're taken away from their home and how do you think they feel?"
Construction on the elders building is scheduled to begin next June and finish around Oct. 30, 2001.
Meanwhile, Pokiak is in the midst of seeking level two funding. Last month he made his request to the Inuvik Regional Health and Social Services Board.
"We'll have to wait and see what kind of response we get from the health board. Then from there I guess we'll go to the minister of health," he said.
The mayor said level two funding would also make sense in that it would allow local people to have work.
"Instead of income support, we'll be paying them to work," Pokiak said.
"When people are working they're happier. And when they're not, this is where all the social problems are."
