Accession G-2015-015 - Northwest Territories. Department of Health

• Textual record
• Graphic material

approximately 1 m of textual records, 140 colour slides, and 16 colour photographs

The slides were part of the Information Services section's slide library. The images include photography of health services, staff, infrastructure and programs offered by the Department of Health and date between 1960 and 1981.
The textual records consist of committee files, records relating to the amalgamation of the departments of Health and Social Services, as well as records relating to the transfer of Baffin region health assets from the federal Department of Health. As well, 90 cm of the textual records relate to the Medical Patient Search Project (MPSP).
The MPSP project was undertaken between 1988 and 1991 to search for the location of medical patients who were sent south for treatment and subsequently lost to their families. The MPSP attempted to provide families with news of their loved ones including where they were sent for treatment, their final resting place as applicable, and copies of medical records if relevant and located. The project searched for individuals from: Baker Lake, Eskimo Point (Arviat), Rankin Inlet, Repulse Bay, Holman Island, Spence Bay (Taloyoak), Arctic Bay, Cape Dorset, Hall Beach, Igloolik, Iqaluit, Pond Inlet, Resolute Bay, Lake Harbour (Kimmirut), Sanikiluaq, Pangnirtung, Rae (Behchoko), Lac La Martre (Whati), Fort Norman (Tulita), and Fort Simpson. Included as part of the MPSP project are a series of colour photographs taken of southern cemeteries where northern patients were buried, as well as a cairn ceremony from June 1990 attended by Health Minister Cournoyea and MPSP staff in St. Albert dedicated to patients who died at the Charles Camsell Hospital.

The MPSP files are organized into three general groups: administration files (contact information, correspondence, briefing notes, reports, media relations), provincial/territorial files (correspondence with other jurisdictions, lists of institutions and cemeteries), and patient files (correspondence, forms relating to the patient, memos to file).