'There's no dignity': Watson Lakers petition territory for long-term care home
CBC
Isabel Welsh has been taking care of her granddaughter Jennifer since the day she was born in Watson Lake, Yukon, 20 years ago.
In the first days of her life, Jennifer was diagnosed with meningitis, an inflammation of the brain and spinal cord. The disease left her immobile and with a very limited vocabulary.
The closest long-term care facilities are in Whitehorse, 500 kilometres away — so her family members take turns feeding her with a tube and pumping mucus out of her lungs to keep her healthy.
"If she went somewhere [in Whitehorse], she wouldn't live a month. For her to be left alone, she couldn't press a distress button," Welsh told CBC News.
"If she ever started choking, they'd never hear her."
Welsh is one of hundreds of people in the Yukon's third-largest community that are asking the territorial government to build a long-term care facility, so families like hers wouldn't have to be separated to get the care they need.
The issue isn't new to Watson Lake. A group called the Sign Post Seniors, named after Watson Lake's memorable tourist attraction, started talking about building an extended care facility in the 1990s, but it never came to fruition.
The issue is gaining more traction now, after a few years of inaction, because the population of Watson Lake is getting older, according to resident Bob Close.
"The issue of everyone aging is a big one," he said.
Roughly 25 per cent of Watson Lake's 1,500 residents are over 60, according to a 2021 population report from the Yukon Bureau of Statistics. The number rises to 35 per cent if you include those who are in their mid-50s, nearing the age of retirement.
Watson Lake has a seniors centre, but it does not offer the same kind of care that long-term care facilities provide, Close said.
"It makes me feel awful actually, when you're breaking up families ... it just creates a huge hardship," Close said.
"There's no dignity I guess. They just sit there in Whitehorse, and hope your loved ones show up."
When CBC News was in Watson Lake in early October, a notice of petition hung in most major businesses and community centres, asking Tracy Anne McPhee, Yukon's health minister, to meet with community members to learn about the need for a long-term care facility.
