Pictured: The ribbon-cutting for the first William Charles Health Centre. Photo courtesy sicc.sk.ca
As Montreal Lake breaks ground on a brand new health centre, its band members want to set a trend for on-reserve healthcare.
The Wednesday afternoon groundbreaking for the William Charles Health Centre location is a celebration of years of effort to break the mold for the Cree nation’s band manager Mark D’Amato.
Montreal Lake’s current health centre of the same name has been operating for 26 years, D’Amato said, and the First Nation had an agreement with Health Canada to receive funding for a renovation after 25 years in operation.
But D’Amato and others wanted to build new rather than renovate. Issues like mould and aging have taken a toll on the current facility, and new trends in healthcare have made the setup of the current health centre too far behind the times, D’Amato said. The health issues from mould left only one option in his mind.
Montreal Lake made this possible by lobbying, negotiating, and putting its own money into the project.
D’Amato says by building new, they want to send a message.
“We’re hoping that it’ll set the trend for the future, send the message to Health Canada that their policies of just doing renovations is not always the best solution to the problem. You know, sometimes you need to sit and rethink the problem to solve it,” he said.
D’Amato has a grander vision for all First Nations, in which healthcare facilities are up to the same standards as those off reserve.
“Our people should be treated no different and people coming in from the outside, just because it’s a reserve, shouldn’t have any kind of stigma or anything attached to it,” he said.
The groundbreaking started at 1 p.m. Wednesday afternoon with officials and Chief Henderson present.
Band councillor Jarret Nelson is responsible for the health portfolio. He says the day means a lot because his late grandmother was in the health field. She was a nurse.
“She was there at the ground-breaking of this facility in 1989. So now for me to come in and basically take in her footsteps and bring a new facility once again to this community is once again, a huge achievement for our Cree Nation,” he said.
The new William Charles Health Centre is set for completion in late 2016.
The band is contributing $4 million, and Health Canada is covering the rest of the $7.5 million dollar facility.
It’s set for completion in December, 2016.