The Women’s Health Clinic’s (WHC) spree of bad luck has finally ended, receiving a $10 million investment from the federal government.
WHC Executive Director Kemlin Nembhard says the news was overwhelming.
“When I had heard I’d gotten the letter from the feds about the funding the day before the announcement, but when the minister actually said it out loud at the press conference, I almost broke out in tears.”
Through the Green and Inclusive Community Buildings (GICB) program, funding will go towards critical upgrades to the clinic’s aging building on Graham Avenue, part of a $20 million capital campaign. This couldn’t have come at a better time, explains Nembhard, after their boiler broke back in February.
“Two weeks ago, it was one of the coldest. After one of the coldest weekends of this year, we came into the building after a long weekend, and the temperature was one degree Celsius. And, so again, we had to basically try and pivot and, you know, get like rebook, you know, or change the appointments to virtual. We actually tried to move some of the appointments to some of our other locations because we couldn’t get the boiler started. So that was day one.”
That following Thursday, Nembhard received a phone call with even more bad news.
“At 7:00 in the morning, I got a phone call from one of our staff that had gone in that early, and some of our steam pipes had busted. And I guess from the pressure of the, you know, the expansion and contraction of the freezing water in the pipes. Basically, there was steam, and you couldn’t even see it in the building because there was moisture coming down one of the walls, just from the steam itself.”
The boiler is just the most recent in a series of unfortunate circumstances with an air conditioning unit breaking over the summer.
WHC supports over 50,000 Manitobans annually, with nearly 20,000 who access health care through their Graham location. While predominantly focused on reproductive health care, their services include birth control and counselling programs, a Provincial Eating Disorder and Recovery Program, an independent birthing center, abortion services, and health education.
Nembhard notes the unreliability of their facility is impacting how they can provide care.
“Many of our services are essential, you know, like providing birth control, abortion, which is time sensitive. Right. And, like, all of those sorts of things are really, they’re, they’re deemed essential for a reason. And so, like you say, it’s incredibly disruptive. It’s incredibly stressful for staff as well. You know, having to pivot constantly and, you know, change,” says Nembhard. “I feel like as a clinic, we haven’t really been able to get out of that much because we’ve just, you know, in this last year alone, we’ve had two major disruptions in our clinic due to systems in our building.”
Their goal is to completely redevelop their location from the floors to the walls, increasing the 19,000ft² space to about 25,000ft². This will breathe new life into the clinic, explains Nembhard, creating a space that demonstrates how WHC values the health of women and gender diverse folks. She adds it will also reduce disruptions and improve the quality of care Manitobans are seeking.
In addition to the $10 million investment, the Winnipeg Foundation contributed $500,000 to the project in January. Nembhard hopes to receive additional funding from the province and notes that WHC will also run a small private sector campaign. Once the majority of the funds are secured, they will proceed with the next phase of construction drawings, aiming to begin building in 2027.
– Ryan Funk, U Multicultural
