Estevan – The Estevan Regional Nursing Home, along with Yorkton Regional Hospital and Weyburn General Hospital and all in need of replacement, according to their respective communities. So what is the state of affairs for the replacement of these three medical facilities? Over a series of four stories, Glacier Media looked into each of these health care facility projects, with a response from the Saskatchewan Ministry of Health, local fundraising committees and reaction from NDP health critic Vicki Mowat. This is the third of the four stories.
With its local funding contribution in place, Estevan is the odd one out, compared to Weyburn and Yorkton. Both of those other communities have received or will receive money to begin work on planning new facilities, but Estevan has not.
In an email on July 13 regarding a new long-term care facility for Estevan, the Ministry of Health wrote, “The Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) and the Ministry of Health are aware of community support for a new long-term care facility in Estevan, but the project has not been approved for planning. The SHA will continue to work with the local community on this potential future project.”
Don Kindopp is chairperson of the New Estevan Regional Nursing Home. The fundraising campaign for a new facility was known as the Heartstone Community Campaign. It focused on raising $8 million; 20 per cent of the expected cost of a new long-term care facility to replace the Estevan Regional Nursing Home, located on the city’s Wellock Road.
That facility doesn’t have centralized air conditioning. The rooms are 45 per cent of the recommended size, Kindopp said. Washroom facilities are not in a segmented room, but separated by a curtain, even in rooms with two beds.
“You have a staff there that’s second to none,” he added. “Although you have a building that may not be appropriate, you have a staff there that provides adequate care.”
They raised just over $8 million, reaching that goal in January, 2015. Some people have still been contributing through memorial donations. Ongoing contributions are still taking place, Kindopp said.
Asked about waiting so long, Kindopp said, “Some words to describe it are ‘frustrating,’ ‘anxious.’ I think the word is ‘determined’ to get it done.”
He said they recognize contributions already made, and see the frustrations among both businesses and private citizens after not seeing anything being done with their donated money.
Asked when they would like to see this done, he responded, “Being sarcastic, ‘Tomorrow’ would be the answer to that.
“We’ve been two or three years ago, if we wait, the process was going to be five years, when it may get done. That was two years ago, and I think the answer is still the same today – in five years. So we have taken some initiatives ourselves, in order to proceed with this,” Kindopp said.
An accounting firm did a study looking at how Estevan could proceed by replacing it themselves. Another study showed that some changes in design could reduce the cost by $10 million, from $40 to $30 million, by adding the new nursing home to St. Joseph’s Hospital’s grounds on the west side of Estevan.
Estevan’s group has met repeatedly with Minister of Health Jim Reiter and Rural Minister of Health Greg Ottenbreit. Kindopp said their project has not be priorized to proceed, at present. “They have other projects in their mind that are higher priority than ours,” he said.
Kindopp recognized the downturn that hit the oilpatch and the province’s finances has had some bearing on how the province is spending its money.
COVID-19 highlights long-term care facilities
In the context of the recent COVID-19 crisis, long-term care facilities have become a focal point, particularly in Quebec and Ontario. Elderly people, and especially those with pre-existing conditions, are seen as particularly vulnerable to the coronavirus. Kindopp said he wrote a letter in May to the Minister of Health indicating his concerns around some of the guidelines and standards for long-term care.
On July 17, NDP Leader Ryan Meili put out a statement calling for independent oversight of seniors’ long-term care and the restoration of legislated minimum care standards.
Kindopp said, “The provincial government doesn't have any standards of care for long-term facilities. They have a draft document around the standards of care, but that's been sitting in the government for for a number of years now.”
“We haven't given up. We're not sitting back and just waiting for the government to come and tap us on the shoulder. We have visited that the Minister of Health five times on last few years and got a hold of our MLA, Lori Carr, and let him (Reiter) know where we're still interested in that. But, in light of COVID now, I think it brings another dimension into long-term care.
“We’ll maybe have that some advantage that if we construct this replacement in the next few years, you're probably able to take advantage of some of the new standards of care that come down around a long-term care because if anything COVID has taught us, it taught us that, social distancing is appropriate. Care has been redefined. You can't have workers moving from one facility to the next facility to the next facility. There's all those kinds of things that we should be able to benefit from in that,” Kindopp concluded.
Final story in series Monday: NDP reaction to health facility replacement in Weyburn, Yorkton and Estevan
Previous stories:
Story #1: Three Saskatchewan cities await progress on new health facities
Story #2: Yorkton gets planning money for new hospital
