It took 12 years of planning to get to this point, but the North Bay Parry Sound District Health Unit has officially opened the doors to its new building in North Bay.
The building came in under budget at a cost of just over $20 million.
Construction took longer than expected, mainly due to supply issues, but any extension beyond the scheduled date of completion came at no cost to taxpayers.
Consolidating programs and services under one roof means the health unit will no longer have the added expense of leasing property. Prior to the new build, staff worked out of three locations around the city.
“It’s a tremendous cost-saving. And financially, because of all the work that was done over the last number of years the building will be paid off. We don’t have a mortgage, we won’t have a loan, it will probably be paid off very shortly, and all that money can go back into programming,” said Dr. Jim Chirico Medical Officer of Health.
The bulk of the funding came from the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care.
“The public health division worked really hard with us. It was the first year that capital project was funded for public health. Before that only hospitals, colleges and universities could get capital funding. So the very first year public health was allowed to do it, we were the first in line, we were all ready and with the help of that team, were able to get the funding.”
Chirico says the Oak Street location beside Marina Point retirement home, is easily accessible.
“It’s located in an area where people will have access to it from a walking distance. It’s right downtown, and because it’s on bus routes they can get here. And there’s bicycle paths.”
One of the new programs being offered is the adult oral health clinic.
“We didn’t have the space to do it in the other office, and we were able to secure funding from different places, so we were able to provide this program here. It’s up and running and it has been just a tremendous benefit to the adults that aren’t eligible for dental assistance anywhere else.”
Lisa Farrell is one of many adults making use of the program.
“My three children all took advantage of the Healthy Smiles program, so they’ve been coming to the dental clinic since they were pretty little. Now they offer the adult clinic, so I’m able to take part in that clinic. It’s for adults who don’t have dental coverage as well. They offer teeth cleaning, fillings, scaling so it’s pretty important,” said Farrell.
In addition, the facility provides a baby friendly room for people to drop-in and use, as well as a youth volunteer lounge where young people can work on community-based projects such as a recent workshop offered to area schools, focusing on mental health.
Space has also been set aside to allow for a teaching kitchen and classroom, providing education on food skills and food safety not only to clients but to community partners.
As a public health inspector with the environmental health team, Shauna Riley says having the kitchen on-site is more efficient.
“Usually when we’re teaching food safety courses, we’ll book a kitchen in the community. With this, we actually have the classroom and the kitchen together. So we can do all our theory, but we can also take the students into the kitchen and show them how to properly clean, sanitize and use the high-temperature commercial dishwasher. So that’s really exciting for us. It’s great to have it in our same building, and just to have that hands-on component.”
As the Board of Health Chair, Nancy Jacko was interested in how staff would respond to the new facility.
“Actually a staff member said ‘I’ve worked with this organization for many years and I’ve just now gotten to meet people that I’ve talked to on the phone.’ So it’s great. It helps with collaboration. It helps to spawn new ideas for programs when you’re close together. So I think it’s absolutely a wonderful opportunity,” said Jacko.
“Not only is it a healthy environment for our staff to work in, it’s a healthy environment for people to come in to. We really want to promote that kind of health in the community,” said Chirico.
