Moose Deer Point expanding healthcare services
By Rick Garrick
MOOSE DEER POINT — Moose Deer Point is looking forward to the completion of a palliative care room in the community’s Health Centre for citizens in the community. Moose Deer Point citizens had suggested that it would be more comfortable to stay in the community for palliative care during a community information session.
“Currently, we have to send them to the West Parry Sound (Health Centre), and it made it very difficult for family members to access them,” says Lorraine Richard, band administrator at Moose Deer Point. “We thought if we could take available space that we had and just renovate it and accommodate a palliative care room here, then the community member could stay here and their family could access them. So it would cut down on the transportation barrier that we do have back here.”
The West Parry Sound Health Centre is located about 61 kilometres north of Moose Deer Point. It has five palliative care beds that offer specialized care to patients with terminal illnesses.
“We have a Health Centre here where we have an NPLC, which is a Nurse Practitioner-Led Clinic that’s run out of West Parry Sound (Health Centre),” Richard says. “We actually had available space that we thought we could renovate … because it already had a bathroom in the room. So it would just be a matter of modifying the bathroom to accommodate accessibility, putting in a soaker tub, wheelchair-accessible toilet and sink, and then also having a hospital bed. It’s actually an enclosed room, they can have privacy [within] that clinic.”
Richard says the community’s Health Centre is located in a former home that was built years ago by the late Robert Schad when he was building Niigon Technologies Ltd. in Moose Deer Point.
“The (Niigon Technologies) manager at the time lived there, and that home reverted back to the band once they were done with it,” Richard says.
Richard says the community is quite happy about having a palliative care room in the Health Centre.
“They were quite happy to hear that we were able to facilitate that,” Richard says. “We don’t know how often we will have to access that room, but just the comfort of knowing that if they ever go into palliative (care), we could actually have some here with us. They don’t have to leave and go somewhere different, and their family can come here at any time; that building will be accessible 24/7.”
Richard says they also have a bed and a fully operational kitchen in the building for family members of the person in palliative care.
“It’s very comfortable, it’s very welcoming,” Richard says. “People can actually stay there and live with their family member while they are (in palliative care).”
Richard says a couple of people have selected to have palliative care at home in the community.
“But we have found that was very stressful on the families because when you’re caring for somebody and then trying to work and look after your kids, it becomes very difficult,” Richard says. “(The palliative care room) just makes it a different environment for all the family to partake in that final journey.”
Richard says the Health Centre is located on the water along the Twelve Mile Bay shoreline.
“It’s a beautiful view from the room,” Richard says. “You can look out and you just see that peaceful water out there, surrounded by trees and rocks. It’s a very serene setting, and I think that people would appreciate looking out that window and seeing our own property rather than looking out and seeing other buildings.”
Richard says they have finished the renovations to the palliative care room and are waiting for the tub, sink, and toilet.
“We’re just in the midst of ordering the hospital bed and making sure we get any necessary equipment that the money will support,” Richard says.
Richard says the Ministry of Health was “very helpful in helping us to secure the funds and then allowing our vision to actually be successful.”
“I’m very happy that we had a very good team working with us to help us make this vision happen, and they’ve been very supportive in anything that we’ve required,” Richard says.