No date for delayed Tulita health centre first set to open in 2021

A new health centre in Tulita, N.W.T., had been slated to open in the fall of 2021 but two years later the community is still waiting and the territorial government says pandemic-related disruptions are to blame. 

A site for the facility has long been identified, unused materials sit in storage, and piles are already driven into the fenced-off area as part of the building's foundation.

The delay is the result of COVID-19-related travel restrictions as well as supply chain issues and availability of labour, a spokesperson for the department of Health and Social Services (HSS) said in an email.

Community leaders in Tulita and the region say the community's current health centre is long due for an update. 

"The one we have now is pretty old and pretty run down, and so we do need a new facility," said Tulita Mayor Douglas Yallee.

Sahtu MLA Danny McNeely said that the community needs a health centre with more space and new equipment in order to deliver proper health care for residents. 

In the first sitting of the newly-elected 20th Legislative Assembly, McNeely told MLAs he wants to make finishing the Tulita health centre a priority. 

Asked why it was important to make the issue one of the first things he spoke about in the assembly, McNeely said he "wouldn't say it was 'important,' I would say it was mandatory."

"You've got an incomplete building, you've got 147 piles sticking out of the ground and it's blocked by the fence going around the site — so it's really an eyesore to the community and it's a hazard to the children playing in and around that area."

McNeely said that he toured Tulita's current health centre as part of his last term and that boxes of records blocked a fire exit because of lack of storage. He said the new facility will have more space for storage, and for patients. 

Former Sahtu MLA Norman Yakeleya had also previously told CBC in 2015 that the Tulita health centre had broken walls and floors and mice running through it. 

HSS said that construction on the project is slated to resume in May 2024 but that it's too soon to say when the facility will actually open. The project had last been budgeted at $18.9 million. The department said it doesn't yet have an updated estimate but McNeely said it will almost certainly cost more. 

McNeely said that in the new year he plans to press for a more detailed update on the facility from the appropriate minister. Then, he said, he will hold a public meeting in the community to relay the message to Tulita residents. 

The Tulita health centre is far from the first northern infrastructure to face delays, following the likes of the Tuktoyaktuk gym, the Fort Good Hope seniors centre and the Hay River arena.  

Chris Monson works with Colliers Project Leaders on infrastructure projects in Alberta in the Northwest Territories. He isn't involved in the Tulita health centre but he says his experience on other northern projects — like the Yellowknife aquatic centre — has taught him that building in the North comes with unique, and hard to solve, challenges.  

He said some of those challenges include accessing materials, shipping those materials, staffing projects, setting up work camps to house labourers, and climate.