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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - A group of nursing students from Aurora College hopes to improve the health of homeless people in Yellowknife by focusing on the nutritional components of their diet.

Heather LaFoy, Leslie Bader and Ayrma Schreurs are fourth-year students in the nursing education program at the school.

From left, Leslie Bader, Ayrma Schreurs and Heather LaFoy - all fourth-year nursing students at Aurora College - accepted food donations at a round-table discussion on Nov. 19 with experts to determine the plausibility of creating a long-term vitamin supplement program to help the homeless population in the city. - Ben Morgan / NNSL photo

This semester they began working on a community-based project and decided to expand on work they had done in the past with the homeless population in Yellowknife. They want to start a daily vitamin supplementation program in the city.

The three nurses spent several weeks contacting a collection of medical professionals and community leaders and asked them to fill out a questionnaire to determine how a program might take shape in Yellowknife.

"We got a fantastic response - probably close to 95 per cent of the surveys back - it was really great to see," said Schreurs.

They met with a group of the respondents in a boardroom at Aurora College on Wednesday for a round-table discussion.

"There's a lot of concern for helping the homeless from people in the city," said LaFoy.

Some of the barriers in the potential program include funding the program, delivery of the vitamins to the homeless people and safeguarding public safety against any unwanted potential side-effects associated with any individual medical conditions.

"We need to find a reliable distribution site and be able to prove that the program will improve people's health," said Schreurs.

"The homeless population here have very starchy diets - lots of white breads and very few vegetables or fruits," she explained. "That puts the population of homeless people in the city at a higher risk for heart disease, respiratory disease and diabetes and it impacts their immune system."

The group hopes to create a pilot project with a subject group of homeless people to better determine the feasibility of creating a long-term vitamin supplement program in the city.