Nunavut’s Department of Health is setting up at Cape Dorset’s community hall for three months, starting Feb. 11, to screen residents for tuberculosis.
“We’re not experiencing an outbreak but we do have active and sleeping TB in our community.”
The screenings are aimed at helping eliminate tuberculosis in the community and preventing future outbreaks.
Households will be contacted and invited in for screening. The tests are voluntary but strongly encouraged, and $25 gift cards will be given out to everyone who takes part.
Those who have active tuberculosis might have a cough that lasts for weeks, feel tired, lose their appetite and experience fever-like symptoms or night sweats. Anyone experiencing these symptoms should go to the health centre for a test as soon as possible.
People can also have latent or “sleeping” tuberculosis, which could turn active and contagious in time.
Similar screenings took place in Qikiqtarjuaq and Whale Cove last year, and close to 90 per cent of eligible residents took part, said Toonoo.
– Tim Edwards
Chase the Ace in Cambridge Bay
Ikaluktutiak/Cambridge Bay
The girls’ hockey team in Cambridge Bay is conducting a trial run of Chase the Ace as a fundraiser, according to Tracy Okhina.
She announced that half the money raised from $5 tickets will go towards the hockey team, 20 per cent will go towards the weekly draw prize, and 30 per cent will be put aside for the grand prize.
Participants get tickets and numbers are drawn every Friday, starting this Friday. The organizers have a deck of cards and the winner of the week’s lottery draw wins a prize and draws a card. If the Ace of Spades is drawn, the person wins the grand prize as well. If it’s not, the contest continues into the next week, using the same deck minus whatever cards have been drawn.
Okhina said participants must be in Cambridge Bay when the numbers are drawn, and that she will announce soon where the draw will take place. She’s selling tickets right now and soon other players on the team will be too.
– Tim Edwards
New power plant in Cape Dorset
Kinngait/Cape Dorset
While a date hasn’t yet been set for the grand opening of Cape Dorset’s new power plant, it is already running and providing power to the community, according to senior administrative officer John Hussey.
“The old plant was just outdated and extremely old — the structure itself — and not equipped for the growth of the community,” said Hussey.
With the completion of the new Peter Pitseolak High School and the Kenojuak Cultural Centre and Print Shop, the new power plant will be able to keep up with a growing Cape Dorset.
“We weren’t having a lot of power failures, by no means, but it’s a proactive measure to make sure we don’t end up in a situation like that,” he says.
– Tim Edwards