The Yukon Kuskokwim Health Corporation has begun expanding its hospital with an aim towards improving health care in the region. The project is expected to take five years and includes building a new primary care facility, renovating the current hospital, and adding housing for its increased staff.
“Thus far we’ve constructed the pad, the site pad we’ll be placing the pilings on,” said Kent Crandall, YKHC Project Manager. “We’ve constructed a security fence around the site, a project office, and a break room.”
Crandall says that the crew will begin driving pilings at the end of the month and continue to work 10 hours a day, six days a week through December.
“At which time we’ll take a break and allow that piling to freeze into place," Crandall said. "Once the first barge arrives in the spring, we’ll start with the structural steel package. So people will begin next summer seeing the building skeleton go up into the air.”
YKHC has contracted with the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation's SKW Eskimo Contracting and Davis Constructors in Anchorage. Crandall says that part of their agreement includes local hire: 60 to 70 percent if they can find it.
But that won’t happen until 2018 when the project's hiring reaches its peak of around 100 employees.
The health care corporation is talking with Yuut Elitnaurviat, Bethel’s work force development center, on how to connect locals to the project’s job opportunities. YKHC will also be posting opportunities on its website.
YKHC President and CEO Dan Winkelman hopes that the project’s five-year scope means people starting their careers can build their skills to the point where they become licensed.
“Someone who is interested in an apprentice position, such as a plumber, carpenter, or laborer, it is possible that they could gain enough hours to become a journeyman,” Winkelman said.
Of course, the goal of the whole project is better health care for the region. The current hospital was built in the 1980’s. Since then, ideas have changed on how care is best provided. Meanwhile, the number of people seeking care has nearly doubled. Vice President of Hospital Services Jim Sweeney says that the new facility will launch a more comprehensive way of delivering health care.
“The idea is that the care manager is looking at the scheduled patients who are coming in to see these providers or that the providers might be going out to see in the villages,” Sweeney said. “And before they get there or before the patient comes in, the care manager will have looked it over and said, ‘Oh, this person needs a blood test. Let’s get it done in the village before they come in.' And then we can have the blood results there when the provider is talking with the patient. Or if they need an x-ray, we’ll get that done before they go in to see the provider. That’s the approach we’re taking now.”
That approach would save time for patients and providers. Patients would spend less time at the hospital, and providers would have more time to see more patients. YKHC has begun testing this new model with five villages. They're working out the kinks as the contractors work on expanding the facility.
