There are many questions but no answers for hospital workers in Watson Lake wondering about their future, says the vice-president of the Yukon Employees' Union.

Loralee Kesler agrees that Monday's meeting among employees and representatives of the territorial government and Yukon Hospital Corp. did open the door to better communications.

Nonetheless, she emphasized, officials were not able to provide employees of the Watson Lake Cottage Hospital with any glimpse of what the future might hold for them.

Kesler said Craig Tuton, chair of the hospital corporation, told the hospital workers the corporation will take the next year or so to explore the proposal of taking over responsibility for the community hospital.

"I think it is going to be difficult to leave them in limbo for a year," she told the Star Tuesday.

"We were all at the meeting and we had an opportunity to hear what the employer had to say. The biggest concern we have right now is that in the case of this transition, these employees are protected."

Kesler said Watson Lake workers must not lose any ground if they need to switch collective agreements. If a transition does occur, she added, three agreements would be impacted.

Currently, nurses and other hospital workers in Watson Lake fall under the collective agreement for Yukon government workers, she explained.

The 140 nurses and physiotherapists at the Whitehorse General Hospital, however, fall under a collective agreement with their own union, the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada.

The other 200-plus Whitehorse hospital employees fall under a collective agreement with the Public Service Alliance of Canada.

Kesler said the community meetings held Monday should have occurred last fall. She accepts Tuton's explanation they didn't for reasons beyond the control of the corporation.

The union, however, is still left wondering why Premier Dennis Fentie has chosen to advance this particular recommendation from more than 40 that came out of the Yukon Health Care Review delivered last September, she said.

Opposition parties have suggested Fentie is trying to save face with the move to turn the troubled and unfinished multi-level care facility into a hospital. The building sits as a boarded-up shell, over-budget and behind schedule, with no interior finish, and expenditures to date in the neighbourhood of $5 million.

The government is exploring what would be required to change directions with the building, and turn the structure into a new hospital at a cost of $25 million, not including interior furniture, fixtures and hospital equipment.

The Whitehorse firm of Kobayashi & Zedda Architects Ltd. has been hired for $200,000 to examine whether the shell could be converted to a hospital, and what that would take.

Tuton said Tuesday the corporation will keep itself fully apprised of the architects' work, and its conclusion, as part of the overall exercise to look at the proposal of adopting the Watson Lake hospital.

The decision to explore the initiative is driven by a desire to improve health care services with a modern hospital facility which can service the region of southeast Yukon, and even northern B.C., to as far south as Dease Lake, he said.

As the territory's population ages, Tuton added, it is essential to ensure the quality of health care is at least maintained to the standards Yukoners have come to expect.

The hospital chair pointed out Kobayashi & Zedda have also been charged with looking at the function of a new acute care hospital, what services it might offer, and how many beds may be appropriate.

The hospital corporation signed a letter of intent last Thursday with Health and Social Services Minister Glenn Hart, Tuton pointed out.

He said the intent is to reach an agreement in the next month or two. That would give the corporation a year to fully examine the proposal of taking over the Watson Lake facility.

Tuton doesn't think it will be a big deal to move the Watson Lake hospital workers into a different collective agreement, and employees were assured Monday their job security and benefits would be protected in any transition.

New Democrat Health critic John Edzerza was in Watson Lake Monday night for the public meeting hosted by Tuton and company, but was not at the closed meeting earlier in the day with Tuton and the hospital workers.

Audience members at the public meeting were referring to the shell of the multi-level care facility as the "white elephant," Edzerza said.

The health care critic said another community member told him the new hospital proposal is nothing more than a smokescreen for Fentie to hide the mess the multi-level care facility has become.

And he said he recalls Tuton saying the hospital corporation is not even sure it will use the shell, or start from scratch.

The $25-million-plus proposal does beg the question of whether it would be much wiser to invest in a new wing of the Whitehorse General Hospital, if the goal is to improve overall health care services for Yukoners, Edzerza said.

Watson Lake Mayor Nancy Moore said Tuesday the trip to Watson Lake by Tuton and the others went a long way to clear up uncertainty among hospital staff and community members.

She said she personally endorses the Yukon Hospital Corp. taking over responsibility for the Watson Lake hospital.

The corporation, she said, is in the hospital management business, and it only makes sense to put the Watson Lake hospital under its guidance.

Fentie has in the past defended the proposal of using the shell as a new hospital as a means of taking advantage of an unforeseen situation.

The multi-care facility was to be tied into the existing hospital, as a long-term care facility.

The premier insists it was only after construction workers began opening up the walls of the existing hospital that it was determined a new hospital was required.