Athabasca Health Facility Officially Open
Wednesday, July 16, 2003 at 14:38
Two-hundred-and-fifty people, including several dignitaries, were on hand for the official opening of a multi-million-dollar health facility near Stony Rapids today.
The new Athabasca Health Facility serves the entire Athabasca Basin, and is the replacement for the old Uranium City hospital which closed down last month.
The new facility cost 12.7-million dollars to build and is located on the Black Lake First Nation’s Chicken Reserve.
It is one of the very few on-reserve health facilities in Canada to be built with help from both the federal government and a provincial government.
In addition to a number of community health services, the facility has 8 acute care beds, 4 long-term beds, a birthing bed and a child observation bed.
The building itself has been designed to support sophisticated medical technology and traditional health care practices at the same time.
Today’s ceremonies included the pounding of the last nail and the cutting of a caribou ribbon.