An anniversary for the Gizhewaadiziwin Health Access Centre.
It’s being in place for twenty years.
Executive Director Shanna Weir says planning took place a few years earlier.
“It was developed out of the Aboriginal Healing and Wellness Strategy back in the 1990s. The doors on this facility actually opened on April 1, 1999,” says Weir.
It was primarily set up to provide services to aboriginal people in the Rainy River District, both on and off reserve, as well as Metis people.
A 2014 report indicates more than 50-thousand people accessed its services that year.
Executive Director Shanna Weir says over the twenty years they’ve been able to add various services along the way.
“We now have the child nutrition program. We have a nutrition program, the diabetes education program, primary care, asthma program, mental health care and physicians plus than our traditional healing clinic.
Weir says they are now looking at the future with plans to add additional services such as physiotherapy, oral health and Indigenous care coordinators who would work with patients in hospital or long term care.
Staff at the Centre celebrated the anniversary with a community bar-b-que Thursday.
Weir notes some of the first employees hired continue to work at the Centre.
