UQSUQTUUQ/GJOA HAVEN - Gjoa Haven residents requiring long-term care will be able to receive it within Nunavut after a new continuing care centre opens in the hamlet on Nov. 4, according to Clara Evalik, the Kitikmeot regional director of the department of health and social services.

The centre cost $10.6 million, Evalik said.

Before the facility was built, many people requiring long-term care in Gjoa Haven had to be sent to facilities outside of Nunavut, Evalik said.

"What we want to do is bring these clients back to the community where they will have access to the kind of care that they were receiving in the South," Evalik said.

Evalik said clients will receive the same level of care, but will be tended to by graduates of Arctic College's home and continuing care program. All 13 employees are from Gjoa Haven and can speak Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun, Evalik said.

The home and continuing care workers attended an orientation last month in Cambridge Bay to learn more about their new jobs.

"They learned what our expectations are in terms of being employees and what we are going to be expecting as continuing care workers," Evalik said. "Overall it was quite successful."

Evalik said she hopes the facility will begin accepting clients immediately after the grand opening in November.

"The building is there. It's ready to be occupied. All the furniture and equipment is in place; all the material has arrived on the barge," she said. "We're just finishing up the last of the hiring of staff and so on."

The department was still interviewing candidates for a registered nurse manager position who will oversee the facility as of Sept. 30. Residents of Gjoa Haven will fill most positions, Evalik said.

"Basically, we're hiring mostly local people, clerk interpreters, janitors and continuing care workers," she said.

The centre has 10 beds and can accept clients who require up to level 3 care, which means they require supervision more than eight hours per day, Evalik said.

"We are bringing back clients that require significant caregiver support and clients who are dependent on a caregiver," she said.

Palliative care, acute and respite care will be available and the centre will run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, she said.

Iglulik is also scheduled to open a long-term care facility, Evalik said.