New Alaska Native medical center takes shape

MAT-SU — The framework for the new Alaska Native medical center in Wasilla is in place and the facility is beginning to take shape.

Expected to employ anywhere from 200-250 people, the clinic is on pace to open by October 2012, according to Chuck Clement, chief operating officer for the Southcentral Foundation.

While the Mat-Su Borough overall saw a 50 percent increase in population during the past decade, the Alaska Native population living here increased by 57 percent, or nearly 10 percent of the Valley’s residents.

A decade earlier, the U.S. Census Bureau reports Alaska Native people were 8.6 percent of the borough’s overall population.

That 57 percent increase in population is significant part of the reasoning behind expanding services offered here through the Alaska Tribal Health System, Clement said in an earlier interview.

The $40 million, 93,000-square-foot medical clinic sits at the northeast corner of Knik-Goose Bay Road and the Palmer-Wasilla Highway in Wasilla.

“For us, we anticipate continued growth out in the Mat-Su,” Clement said in an interview this past spring. “There doesn’t seem to be an ending of the pattern of migration from the rural villages. We’re anticipating the populations (of Alaska Natives) will continue to grow and we’re trying to plan and embrace that.”

The new facility will expand the type of health care services Alaska Native people can receive in the Valley and reduce the frequency patients have to travel to Anchorage for care, Clement said.

The Valley has outgrown its existing Alaska Native medical clinic in Wasilla in the Creekside Center, he said.

Contact Greg Johnson at greg.johnson@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.