The Bay Mills Indian Community held a ribbon-cutting ceremony at their Sault Ste. Marie Dental Clinic and Pharmacy, “Mitigoons”, Wednesday afternoon.
A couple dozen people attended the event outside braving the 15-degree cold.
Afterwards, they went inside to tour the office and have refreshments.
Mitigoons, which is Ojibwe for branch, is an extension of Bay Mills Health Center. The site includes a dental office and pharmacy. The 3,800-square-foot building employs seven people with support from the main health center.
Audrey Breakie, Health and Human Services Director for Bay Mills says they were initially uncertain where they were going to open up this branch, but when the old Soo Corner Store closed up, she knew this would be a great location.
"I was looking around town for available spots. We ended up coming down here and I liked the location and the size of the building. So that is when they knew it was coming to this spot," Breakie said.
The property was purchased in 2021.
They were hoping to use the existing Corner Store building but ended up tearing it down and started from scratch.
"When we went into this building, Josh Hudson, who was my assistant at the time, wrote the business plan for this facility. He was a huge part of it. He then left the facility, but was here today," continued Breakie.
The cost of the project was around 2 million dollars.
With the shortage of dentists in the area, it means a lot to have this addition to the community.
'This means a lot. This is our first footprint in the Sault Ste. Marie area for healthcare. We are very excited to work with the city," Breakie said.
"We are very excited and will have continued discussions about growth. This is not taking care of the problem completely with the lack of dentists, but we are one step closer," explained Breakie.
Dr. Joselyn Verdelli, Chief Dental Officer of Bay Mills Health Center, believes this is the start of something positive in the area for dental care.
"We have a lot of potential, a lot of room to grow. We have one dentist and one hygienist here at this new location. We have three dentists and two hygienists at Bay Mills," Verdelli said. "It's great to meet the needs of everyone in the Soo, but it also helps our tribal and non-tribal patients who have to drive all the way out to Brimley, especially in the winter."
The Dental Clinic in Bay Mills and, now, Sault Ste. Marie, has around 1,700 patients, according to Breakie. Verdelli said they have a waiting list of around 2,000 people.
The new clinic is located at 204 E. Portage Avenue across from City Hall.
