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Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Wednesday, November 9, 2011
New clinic planned for Interior tribe members By JEFF RICHARDSON jrichardson@newsminer.com The demands on the Chief Andrew Isaac Health Center have been growing, and the clinic is growing along with them. The Fairbanks-based clinic, which provides medical and dental services to Alaska Native tribal members in the Interior, treated about 14,000 patients last year. They hail from a vast 185,000-square-mile area, most of which is covered by Tanana Chiefs Conference tribal consortium. It’s those figures that are spawning another set of big numbers — a new $68 million, 95,000-square-foot building located on Cowles Street next to the Big Dipper. The new clinic, scheduled to open in early 2013, will quadruple the size of the current Chief Andrew Isaac Health Center. It’s being constructed with the ability to expand by an additional 40,000 square feet in the future if demand continues to grow. “Really, what this is
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An artist’s rendering shows the new Chief Andrew Isaac Health Center. about is expanding our care to meet our demand,” TCC Health Director Victor Joseph said during a tour of the site in September. The current clinic is located on the upper floors of Fairbanks Memorial Hospital; its new site is basically across the street. It’s
expanding to meet the needs of a growing, aging tribal population. During peak times, patients are sometimes treated in the hallways of the existing health center. TCC planners have envisioned a new clinic for years and secured funds to purchase 4.5 acres from the
hospital and an adjoining 5 acres from the city. Financing for construction costs will be reimbursed by the Indian Health Service, the federal agency that will pay TCC for services at the clinic, Joseph said. The Cowles Street clinic, which broke ground in April,
will also offer new services such as radiology and laboratory tests. The health center staff, which currently includes about 300 employees, expects to add about 100 new positions as the workload grows. Contact staff writer Jeff Richardson at 459-7518.