Radville and area residents gathered in the Innovation Centre on Friday evening for an information meeting regarding the plans for the new Radville Marian Health Centre, which will be going to construction hopefully by the fall.
Radville and area residents gathered in the Innovation Centre on Friday evening for an information meeting regarding the plans for the new Radville Marian Health Centre, which will be going to construction hopefully by the fall. Approximately 30 people attended the meeting including Jacquie Becker, head of the fundraising foundation for the health centre.
"It's just a God-send, because for the people we have two wonderful doctors. Everyone loves the doctors here. Having the emergency here, and not having to drive to Weyburn or Regina, it's big. To have the long-term care facility, it's just fabulous. If we didn't have this new facility, they'd have to close down our old one, so it's a big deal," said Becker.
So far the fundraising committee has managed to raise $2.5 million for paying the community side of the building cost through various events. Currently the provincial government will pay for 80 per cent of the building and the community will pay for 20 per cent. The current budget for the building is set at $21.2 million, however the total cost will change as there will be consultant fees on top of this. The community will also have to pay to furnish the facility, and pay for moving equipment such as the X-ray machine. No cost figures are known for this at the moment.
The new health centre will be a state-of-the-art facility. Half of it will be a general purpose health clinic. The clinic will include examination rooms, a lab, space for out-patient procedures, a physiotherapy department, and emergency services. This part of the facility will also include garages for emergency vehicles and a storage area.
The other half of the facility will be a long-term care home. This home will have 25 resident rooms, including two rooms for couples, and will be divided between two different wings. Each room will be 200 square feet, with a private bathroom. The wings will also contain five multi-purpose rooms. One of these multi-purpose rooms will be a large activities area for activities like shuffleboard and have lots of natural light. The other rooms will be used for things such as counselling, a spiritual area, and a hair salon.
One of the biggest goals in designing the interior of the care home is to make it feel "homey." Sandra Enns, an interior designer with Stantec Architecture, talked about how they wanted to make the care home as warm and welcoming as possible.
"A lot of health facilities can be very institutional. Since this is going to be people's home it's very important that it's a warm and inviting space, to try to create that home atmosphere," said Enns. "We have to still make it durable, have infection control, and all of those practical things, but we want to do everything we can to make sure it's as comfortable as possible for the people living there."
They plan on making the home a welcoming place through using warm, creamy colour tones, which will be accented with vinyl with wood patterns. The vinyl was chosen for the look and sanitary purposes. There will also be memory boxes outside of each room. These boxes will have shelves with a glass front, and residents will be able to decorate their box with their belongings. This is intended to allow residents to make their room their own, and also help residents with dementia identify their room.
"It might boost the residents spirits more. It won't be like walking into a gross, dungeony place. If it's like a nice, warm place it might help a little bit," said Enns.
The care home will also include secure walking areas and a supervised outdoor area. This outdoor area will be a safe area with a fence that has an open view of the surrounding area. It will be a safe place where people with disorders like dementia can be outside. The outdoor area will also have a barbecue pit.
Residents tabled several questions after the presentation about the new facility. Questions were asked concerning the size of residential rooms, when construction will take place, how much it will cost, and what the down time will be like as equipment is moved from the old facility to the new one. At this point it is not known what the down time will be. Some Radville residents were vocal about wanting to see the lab equipment moved first so these services wouldn't experience much down time.
"From the questions and the discussion people are just really anxious to get the thing going," said Radville resident Roy Levee. "It's so important to this community. You look at the demographics here, and the people that want to retire here and all that kind of stuff. It's just so important here."
The plans for the new facility will go to tender in late August, and pending their approval construction may begin in mid October. Once construction begins, it is expected to take 16 to 18 months to build the facility.
