The Northwest Territories is a small, geographically enormous place to grow old or become unwell in. One territorial health authority runs almost everything, which makes the system simpler to describe than a province's — but distance and remoteness create real, practical limits on what “access to care” actually means if you live outside Yellowknife or one of the larger regional centres. This guide sets out how Home Care and long-term care actually work, what is genuinely available, and what to do if your family member's own community cannot provide the level of care they need.
Since August 1, 2016, health and social services in the NWT have been delivered by a single territorial body, the NWT Health and Social Services Authority (NTHSSA), which was created by amalgamating what had been six separate regional authorities. NTHSSA, working with the Department of Health and Social Services, is responsible for Home Care, long-term care, hospitals, and community health centres across the territory. In practice this means the same programs and eligibility rules apply everywhere — it's the availability of services locally, not the rules, that changes from community to community.
The Home and Community Care Program is delivered through your local Home Care program or Community Health Centre. You need a valid NWT health care card. Services can include nursing care (wound care, medication management, palliative support), personal care and respite through home support workers, and access to a dietitian, medical social worker, occupational therapist, and physiotherapist, plus help with equipment. Care is planned by a multidisciplinary team, and families are treated as active partners in that planning, not just recipients of it.
To start, contact your local Home Care program directly — self-referral is accepted, or a physician or nurse practitioner can refer you. A nurse or member of the care team then carries out an assessment to work out what support best meets your family member's needs. Every community and region has its own Home Care contact number; if you don't know yours, your Community Health Centre can point you to it, or you can start with the regional number for your area (see the Sources box below for the full official contact list by region).
Who to call first. Your local Home Care program or Community Health Centre is the single entry point for both home care and long-term care in the NWT — the same office handles the initial assessment for both. There is no separate territory-wide intake line, so start locally.
The NWT has ten long-term care facilities, all publicly funded and located in a small number of communities: Aven Manor and Aven Cottages (the territorial dementia facility) plus Łı̨wegǫ̀atı̀ Long Term Care and its Extended Care Unit, all in Yellowknife; Jimmy Erasmus Senior's Home in Behchokǫ̀; Elder Care Home in Fort Simpson; Northern Lights Special Care Home in Fort Smith; Woodland Manor in Hay River; the Inuvik Regional Hospital Long Term Care Unit; and the Sahtú Dene Nechá Kǫ́ Long Term Care Facility in Norman Wells.
That is the full list. Most NWT communities — including many fly-in communities in the Sahtu, Beaufort-Delta, Dehcho and Tłı̨chǫ regions — have no long-term care facility at all. This is simply a fact of the territory's population size and geography, not a gap the health authority is hiding: it is stated plainly in the honest, sparse way official NWT documentation tends to be written. In practice, this means a resident of a smaller or remote community who needs facility-based long-term care will very likely need to relocate — sometimes hundreds of kilometres, and often by air — to reach one of the communities above. For families, that can mean a parent or grandparent moving away from their home community, their language group, and their support network at the point they are most vulnerable. This is one of the clearest structural realities carers in the NWT need to plan for early, not discover in a crisis.
No false comfort here. We can't tell you a wait time for a specific facility because NWT does not appear to publish one; the placement process is driven by assessed need rather than a queue, and there is no public wait-time dashboard equivalent to what larger provinces publish. If you need a current estimate for a specific home, ask your Home Care coordinator or email the Territorial Admissions Committee directly (contact details below) rather than relying on a number found online.
To apply, contact your local Community Health Centre or Home Care program. A nurse carries out a comprehensive nursing, medical and functional assessment — covering things like sensory ability, self-care capacity, and mobility — and the application is then reviewed by the Territorial Admissions Committee (TAC). If approved, your family member joins a single territorial waitlist, ranked by assessed care need rather than by the date they applied. When a bed becomes free, it goes to whoever on the list has the highest assessed priority — not automatically to whoever has waited longest. Written consent from the applicant (or their legal guardian or substitute decision-maker) is required to apply, which is one more reason to have Power of Attorney or a personal directive arranged before capacity becomes an issue.
If a bed offer is declined, your family member usually stays on the waitlist but does not get priority claim on the next available bed — someone else with a higher assessed need moves ahead. TAC can be reached directly by email at TAC@gov.nt.ca for questions about an existing application.
As of May 1, 2026, the standard monthly room-and-board rate for NWT long-term care facilities is $1,021.00. This covers accommodation and board; facilities may charge separately for things like continence supplies, activities, personal services, and medications not otherwise covered. If this rate would cause financial hardship, residents can apply for income assistance through their local ECE (Education, Culture and Employment) Service Centre.
Between 2018 and 2024, the NWT ran a Paid Family/Community Caregiver pilot project in six communities — Behchokǫ̀, Dettah, N'Dilo, Yellowknife, Tuktoyaktuk, and Hay River. It let elders, seniors, and people with disabilities hire a family member, friend, or community caregiver for up to four hours a week of household and community support (cleaning, meal prep, errands, snow removal), separate from clinical Home Care services. The pilot concluded on March 31, 2024, and as of this article has not been replaced by an ongoing program. The territorial government has stated that design work is underway for future continuing-care support services along similar lines, to help people age in place — but there is nothing operating in its place right now, and we could not verify a timeline for a successor program. If a family caregiving support program matters to your situation, it is worth asking your Home Care coordinator directly whether anything new has launched since this was written, rather than relying on this or any other page for the current answer.
Respite care itself has not disappeared — it remains part of the standard Home and Community Care Program, alongside “Elders in Motion” and other home-support services delivered through your local team.
Outside of Home Care and long-term care, NWT residents may also be eligible for the GNWT Extended Health Benefits program, which covers drugs, dental, vision care, medical supplies and equipment, and medical travel. Full no-cost coverage is available to seniors aged 60 and over and to lower-income families; higher-income families may get partial coverage with cost-sharing. Métis residents may instead be covered through the Métis Health Benefits Program, and First Nations and Inuit residents through Indigenous Services Canada's Non-Insured Health Benefits (NIHB) program — it's worth checking which of these applies before assuming GNWT Extended Health Benefits is the right route for your family member. Apply or ask questions via the Health Benefits Program at 1-800-661-0830 ext. 49462, or healthcarecard@gov.nt.ca.
Two federal programs commonly apply to NWT carers on top of territorial ones: the Disability Tax Credit (DTC), a non-refundable tax credit for people with a severe and prolonged impairment (or their supporting family member); and EI caregiving benefits — the Compassionate Care Benefit (up to 26 weeks, for end-of-life care) and the Family Caregiver Benefit for Adults (up to 15 weeks, for a critically ill or injured adult). Neither requires you to live with, or be related to, the person you're caring for — you need to be considered like family. Check current eligibility on the Government of Canada pages linked below before applying, as thresholds and forms change.
Federal credits and benefits — including the Disability Tax Credit and Canada Caregiver Credit — sit alongside NWT's territorial programs, and many carers miss them simply because no single office tells you about all of them at once.
💰 Canadian Entitlements Checker ⚖️ Power of Attorney — how it works 🏥 Hospital Discharge — Canadian pathwaysLast verified: August 2026. Figures, thresholds, and programme details change regularly. Always verify current information at the source links above before making decisions.
CarerCompass is free and run by a GP in their spare time.
If it helped, you can support the project.