Klondike Sun ~ May 19, 2010
YESAB Open House on Hospital Project Raises Many Questions
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Parks Canada carpenters were quickly on the site to repair the damage to the Bank of British North America building after a truck hit one of the pillars supporting the balcony over the main entrance. The pillar was split when a truck driver took the corner off Queen Street onto Second Avenue and misjudged the angle. Sources at Parks indicate that they know who did it and the person is very sorry. They promised to withhold the name of the driver so that person will not die of embarrassment.
Story & Photos by Dan Davidson
About 28 people attended two sessions of a YESAB sponsored open house to discuss plans for the new Dawson Hospital, and it seemed that many of the questions that have dogged this project from the beginning are still on peoples’ minds.
The real purpose of the open house was to discuss the site plan and design being proposed by the Yukon Hospital Corp. and designed by the architectural firm of Kobayashi and Zedda. This was complicated by the fact that neither the computer assisted design animation nor the posters on the wall, showing variations on the basic concept, were, in fact, designs that had passed muster at Dawson’s Historic Advisory Committee.
Committee member Shirley Pennell expressed her concern that the public was being shown concepts that had not been approved and were still due to be altered before they would be acceptable.
The hospital corporation’s senior project manager Mike Cowper admitted that YHC was behind in preparations and that they had “brought what they had” to show to the meeting.
While the information on the open house poster indicated that the project would begin this spring and cover two construction seasons, discussion at the meeting was that there would be three, with the facility opening in the fall of 2012. While it was not really within the purview of this gathering, a number of people still wanted to argue against the selection of this site, which is behind the Dawson City Museum and beside Minto Park.
6th Avenue resident Sylvia Burkhard, whose home will fall under the shadow cast by the new building, has been opposed to the site from the beginning and repeated her concerns about the loss of green space, the children’s playground and historical use of the property. Over 300 citizens signed a petition agreeing with her last year, but it was dismissed by the government when it was presented in the legislature.
The hospital corporation has typically declined any responsibility for the site selection, indicating that this is the site they were given to use by the territorial government. The government has refused to discuss any other site in the community.
The presentation by Cowper and Jack Kobayashi conceded that the site presented problems. It was small for both the project and the construction phase. It is located beside a working nursing station and doctor’s office which will be affected by the construction. Lane access to both the ambulance ramp at the Health Centre and the Dawson City Museum, must be maintained throughout the construction.
Access to sewer and water utility connections will have to be from 5th Avenue, a block away, rather than from 6th Avenue.
Glenda Bolt indicated that the building was going into too cramped a space, would overpower the residential neighbourhood, and would detract from the stature of the Dawson City Museum, a recognized building of historical significance.
Burkhard and senior Barb Hanulik both felt the new hospital was extravagantly large for a town Dawson’s size and wondered where the patients were going to come from.
Cowper and YHC CEO Joe MacGillivray indicated that the size of the project was based on population projections running out to 2020 and taking into account Dawson’s aging population. They failed to mention what has been said in earlier meetings, that the hospital is intended to be a regional unit serving Old Crow, Mayo and as far south as Pelly Crossing.
The issue of just what to call this building arose once again. Sharon Edmunds asked that its functions be defined.
“What is a hospital?” asked Shirley Pennell, who felt that the term needed qualification. Surely it was merely a “cottage hospital” and should be advertised as such, she said, before people get exaggerated expectations.
The new building will, said Cowper, be a hospital in that people will be able to stay in it overnight. It will be staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, as opposed to the daytime hours plus on-call system currently in use. In addition to a nursing station it will contain a doctors’ clinic, space for a dentist, inpatient rooms, an ambulance bay, training rooms and spaces for a variety of health related offices and programs.
“You’ll have a single place that you can go to receive health services,” MacGillivray said.
On the other hand, there will still not be birthing facilities here and it’s likely that many blood tests will still need to go elsewhere for processing.
Town councillor Stephen Johnson raised the issue of staffing. He noted that Dawson’s current full time doctor, Gerard Parsons, has indicated he will be starting a sabbatical year as of July 1. He has not been able to recruit a replacement for his services and so far the territorial government has not addressed this issue publically.
Where, Johnson wanted to know, was YHC planning to find the staff to answer these and other needs?
“Recruitment’s always going to be an issue,” Cowper said. “It’s hopeful that having a more modern facility will attract more staff. It’s also hoped that having this hospital will maybe encourage more specialists to come to Dawson.”
This, apparently, is part of the logic behind the construction of medical staff housing in Whitehorse.
“We’re improving the accommodation there so we can get more specialists to come north to Whitehorse,” Cowper said. “Then the idea is that hopefully they will go to both Dawson and Watson more often.”
Housing for an increased cadre of medical services personnel is another issue that was raised. There is a housing shortage in Dawson and a number of people at the meeting were among those who have lived here for some years by house sitting for vacationing home owners. Where would new staff be housed and are there any plans for building more staff houses?
There was no answer to these questions. The only major Yukon Housing Corporation project announced for the near future is the replacement of the Korbo Apartment Building, slated to begin this year.
The only expansion of residential lots under discussion is the one in the former Dome Road Gravel Pit which is also the site of the contentious Slinky Mine. The impasse between these competing projects has still not been addressed in any meaningful way by the territorial government.
P e n n e l l , a l o n g wi t h councillors Johnson and Bill Kendrick, did have a number of questions about the design of the building itself, beginning with the wall of windows by the proposed main entrance. With the exception of the Dänojà Zho Cultural Centre (also designed by Kobayashi and Zedda), no Dawson building has roof to ground windows. The town’s new Heritage Management Plan specifies that new large buildings should, where possible, be historically sympathetic to the historic motif and perhaps mimic the look of some preexisting building.
Johnson questioned the use of flat roof space in the design. It was pointed out that most of the flatter roofs in town (the dangerously compromised curling rink being a prime example) have problems with snow load weights and with leaks caused by the melting/ freezing glacial effect of heavy snowpack on a roof.
One of the concerns over the course of this debate has been the impact the hospital might have on the Dawson City Music Festival. DCMF preseident Jenna Roebuck says the society has been assured that the annual festival can continue. Cowper confirmed that construction work will actually cease during the festival weekend over the three year span of the work.
The building has been designed so that there are no windows on the Minto Park side of the structure. This will cut down on noise and any chance of damage from excessively long homerun softballs hit out of the ball diamond there. Inpatient rooms will be on the north side of the building for the same reason.
Because 6th Avenue is quite narrow the main entrance to the new hospital will be situated off the back lane that leads past Victory Gardens and continues to the Museum parking lot. There will be a drive-through EMS entrance off 6th Ave.
The open house was in two sessions, with about 18 people at the earlier hour and around 10 at the later session.
Download full online edition: (pdf – 12.3 MB)
IN THIS ISSUE:
1 – BNA Bank & Hospital Meeting
2 – YESAB Open House
3- Sled Dawgs Rule
4 – Uffish Thoughts
5 – What to See & Do in Dawson
6 – YQII Meeting
7 – CDF Grants
8 – A Dramatic Announcement
9 – A Golden Weekend
10 – Home Sweet Home
12- DCMF Profiles
14-18- TV Guide deleted
19 – 20 years Ago
20 – The P-Mail Network
21- World Heritage Part 2
22 – Bookends
23 – Tar Sands or Oil Sands?
24 – 7 Days / Empathy
25 – Geese & Cartoons
26 – RCMP Blotter
27 – Classifieds
28 – City Notices
