Sorted by date Results 376 - 400 of 416
An informal workshop was arranged last week to allow members of the City and Borough Assembly meet with representatives of two medical providers planning to merge next month. In October, Wrangell-based clinical services provider Alaska Island Community Services (AICS) announced it would merge with the larger Southeast Alaska Rural Health Consortium (SEARHC), based in Sitka. For a symbolic price of $1, the property for AICS’ Wood Street clinic location was provided by the city in 2010 prior to the facility’s construction, with the intention of...
Residents are reminded that January 15 is the cutoff for open enrollment in the Health Insurance Marketplace. In a media release put out by Southeast Alaska Rural Health Consortium on Tuesday, it notes that many who already had insurance plans through the marketplace were automatically renewed for the new year. But for those who failed to pay their initial premiums on time or would like to change their policies, they still have time to do so ahead of the coverage period start on February 1. Otherwise, one might have to wait until March 1 to beg...
Another housing unit has officially gone smoke-free, according to Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium’s local health promotion department. This fall the new owners of the Stikine Native Organization building on Front Street – colloquially known as the SNO Building to locals – formally made the building’s apartments smoke free. SEARHC health educator Tammi Meissner pointed out the move makes it the first private residential complex in town to register its policy with the state. In September, the Wrangell Senior Apartments formally went s...
The heads of two consolidating health providers appeared before the Wrangell City and Borough Assembly Tuesday evening to talk about upcoming plans and to answer any questions the assembly’s members might have about the transition. Last month Wrangell-based Alaska Island Community Services (AICS) announced it would be merging with larger organization SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium (SEARHC), a process expected to finalize in February 2017. AICS executive Mark Walker explained the move was necessitated by the provider’s growth. Sin...
Last week a Wrangell-based clinical services provider announced its formal merger with another regional health service. Alaska Island Community Services (AICS) and SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium (SEARHC) will formally affiliate; a process which is expected to be finalized by the beginning of February 2017. Since 1989 AICS has provided clinical and mental health services to the community, expanding its service range to Petersburg, Gustavus, Point Baker, Port Protection, Coffman Cove, Whale Pass, Naukati and Edna Bay. Last month it a...
Last month Wrangell's Senior Apartments formally went smoke-free, asking its residents to instead head outdoors if they feel the need to have a cigarette. "It was mostly for the health and well-being of our tenants," explained Gail Rilatos, manager of the facility for the past four years. The decision was made by the apartment complex's five-member governing board, which sought input on a new policy from Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium. SEARHC facilitates an Alaska Tobacco...
A local tradition now for four years running, the annual five-kilometer (3.1 mile) jog celebrating the summer solstice took on a new dimension. Held on Saturday, the 2016 Smoke-Free Summer Solstice 5K encouraged participants to pursue a tobacco less lifestyle. Ordinarily organized by the running group the Southeast Beasts, this year's run was put on by the Partnership for Tobacco Free SouthEast, a regional coalition encompassing Petersburg, Juneau, Ketchikan and other communities in addition to...
The community’s coalition for health and wellness organizations is looking for a new image. The Healthy Wrangell Coalition has announced a sort of logo contest, through which it hopes to make its activities more recognizable to the community at large. “We’ve kind of been operating under the radar for a while,” explained Kris Reed, with HWC. “Folks don’t really know who we are and what we do, and that we’re available for things like letters of support for grants.” Member organizations include Alaska Island Community Services, Wrangell Medica...
With the advent of December, Wrangell's streets and storefronts have begun taking on a more festive appearance ahead of the Christmas season. The tree which serves as the centerpiece of the community's Midnight Madness celebration tomorrow evening was cut down, moved and re-raised at the Elks Club by Wrangell Municipal Light and Power on Monday. Despite gusts of up to 31 miles per hour, the work crew managed to trim and place the 54-foot Sitka spruce, which was harvested from federal forest at t...
Wrangell residents are invited to shake off their winter malaise and step down to the annual Health Fair this Saturday from 8 a.m. to noon inside the Nolan Center. The fair will feature booths put up by 45 different agencies, groups and organizations related to health and wellness. Participating groups are many and varied, aimed for all ages. Alaska Island Community Services (AICS) will have its Teddy Bear Clinic for the wee ones, Wrangell Volunteer Fire Department will provide free blood pressure checks for adults, and Hanna’s Place will h...
Scores of people lined up with plates for Wrangell's Alaska Native Sisterhood Camp 1 and Alaska Native Brotherhood Camp 4 third annual Unity Dinner on Saturday evening. Participants partook in a bit of fellowship and marked the start of November's National Native Heritage Month. "The theme of this Unity Dinner is 'let's work together,'" explained Virginia Oliver, Wrangell's Johnson-O'Malley coordinator. Members from all seven Wrangell clans were there, plus visitors from neighboring...
Seniors in Wrangell will have a different weapon available this year against seasonal aches and chills brought on by influenza. A “high-dose” vaccine with four times the antigens of the regular, “low-dose” version is being offered by Wrangell Medical Center during its annual adult immunization clinic. This high-dose version of the immunization is recommended by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for adults aged 65 years or older. According to the CDC’s website, human immune defenses weaken with age, placing older people at...
The seals' death circulated via text message, phone, and word of mouth the minute they touched the shore of Shakes Island Friday. Alaskan Native Wrangellites had hunted, killed, butchered - and would eventually smoke and eat - harbor seals, long a traditional part of the native diet and permitted under strict guidelines by the Marine Mammal Protection and Endangered Species acts. Parts of the law allow hunting for subsistence and the manufacture of Native handicrafts, according to the Harbor...
The air was thick with sawdust and the sound of electric motors this weekend at Wrangell High School. Visiting representatives from the One People Canoe Society were in town to hold a paddle-making workshop in preparation for the biannual Celebration, a festival of Tlingit culture in Juneau. While decorative paddles are sometimes a feature of Alaskan Native culture, the workshop this weekend was a little more practically oriented, said Brian Chilton, an artist by trade who oversaw the workshop...
Wrangellites hoping to take advantage of the Southeast Regional Health Consortium’s services will no longer have to make two separate trips. SEARHC’s prevention and referral offices have been combined into a single office located in the Stikine Native Organizations building along Front Street. The SEARHC Traditional Foods Program and Referral Care had been located in separate office spaces. Officials with the Consortium celebrated the consolidation with an open house at the new offices March 4. The event drew about 30 people, officials sai...
More than 200 people met Saturday with local organizations at the Wrangell Cooperative Association's first membership rally. Representatives from the Association, the Indian Environmental General Assistance Program, Alaska Island Community Services and Tlingit-Haida registered, updated, collected and distributed information for 210 people by the end of the four-hour event at the Stikine Native Organizations building. Organizers from the WCA's Membership Committee had worked on organizing the...
Wrangellites packed into the Stikine Native Organization building Tuesday night to partake in traditional native foods. The Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium's Traditional Foods Project hosted a Unity Dinner, complete with traditional dancing, traditional foods, and native dress. The meal was the third time this year the program has collected the native organizations, and assistant Ken Hoyt ticked off the types of traditional foods local chefs, hunters, foragers, and others managed to...
SITKA, Alaska (AP) _ When Sonja Conner glanced at the photo of a smiling girl in July 26 Daily Sitka Sentinel, she thought the girl looked a lot like her mother. But she didn’t read the caption saying the picture was one of three photos of the same girl that were found in a book Gale Kehres had bought at the White Elephant shop. Kehres wondered if somebody in town would recognize the pictures and want them back, and she asked the Sentinel to help her find out. After Sonja Conner saw the picture in the Friday Sentinel she put the paper aside, f...
Former Wrangell Medical Center CEO Noel Rea has accepted a position as the head of Sitka’s Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium hospital. In a newsletter to SEARHC members and employees, Charles Clement, the organization’s CEO, said Rea was taking over as the interim administrator of SEARHC Mt. Edgecumbe’s operation. “It is with a heavy heart that I announce the resignation of our friend and colleague, Dr. Marty Grasmeder, Hospital Administrator/Medical Director of the SEARHC Mt. Edgecumbe Hospital. His last day will be at the end of...
The Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium partnered with the Center for Disease Control this week to hold a meeting on traditional foods – and showcased a variety of options available to Natives and others for healthy eating. The meeting was held at the James and Elsie Nolan Center starting on Monday, June 17 and is a required component of the CDC’s Traditional Foods Program and for all tribal entities receiving grant money under a federal program aimed at diabetes prevention in Ame...
Wrangell not only has a new medical clinic, but a brand new physician added to the staff of the Alaska Island Community Services location on Wood Street. Dr. Laura Dooley, who has been affiliated with Bartlett Regional Medical Center and Southeast Regional Health Consortium, began work this week and will be seeing patients at the new facility. Dooley, who just arrived in town with her husband, said she has been here in the past during her travels throughout the state. “It’s good to be here in...
For Alaska Natives, food is essential – and traditional foods are of extreme importance to the indigenous people of the Last Frontier as they choose to live their history and culture in the modern age. In Wrangell, the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium leads the way with its traditional foods program, under the direction of Ken Hoyt. Hoyt moved to Alaska in 2012 to take over the program and has, in the past year, introduced a variety of projects to the Natives and non-Natives of W...
After more than a year of planning, design and construction, the brand new Alaska Island Community Services clinic held an open house to show off the multi-million dollar building, its technological innovations and ways its new floor plan would assist clients in the medical and counseling process. The new facility, located on Wood Street, opened on June 5 and has nearly doubled the number of examination rooms available to patients. It cost nearly $4 million to build and is now prepared to offer...
