It doesn’t appear an announcement is on the horizon for a new nursing home in Estevan.
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.”
Estevan is among the communities in need of a major new healthcare facility. Weyburn and Yorkton are looking for new hospitals.
Weyburn reached its fundraising goal of 20 per cent of the projected cost in the fall of 2014, several months before Estevan did for its new nursing home. The Ministry of Health says it is in the final planning stages of the Weyburn Hospital Project. However, construction has not yet started.
There was $500,000 in the 2020-21 provincial budget made available to plan for a new hospital in Yorkton, even though the Yorkton community has only raised about $1 million for the hospital, well short of the 20 per cent required before the project can enter the provincial queue.
“The Ministry of Health and the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) have begun the first phases of the planning process. Timelines for the project will be available later in the planning process,” a ministry spokesperson said in an email regarding Yorkton.
As for Estevan, Don Kindopp is chairperson of the New Estevan Regional Nursing Home committee. The fundraising campaign for a new facility was known as the Hearthstone 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 current Estevan Regional Nursing Home.
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 are separated by a curtain, even in rooms with two beds.
“You have a staff there that’s second to none,” he said. “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 completed, he responded, “Being sarcastic, ‘Tomorrow’ would be the answer to that.
“We’ve been told 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 projected cost by $10 million, from $40 to $30 million, by adding the new nursing home to St. Joseph’s Hospital’s grounds.
Estevan’s group has met repeatedly with Minister of Health Jim Reiter and Rural and Remote Minister of Health Greg Ottenbreit. Kindopp said their project has not be prioritized 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.
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 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 the minister of health five times in last few years and got a hold of our MLA, Lori Carr, and let him (Reiter) know 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 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 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.
New Democratic Party MLA Vicki Mowat, who is the opposition health critic, said a new nursing home for Estevan is a needed facility, one that the community supported through fundraising.
“And there's really no plan from this government in terms of prioritizing which projects, receive those, those dollars. We asked about long term forecasting all the time; when can this is when can this community expect this facility? When can this community expect this facility? And they don't have a clear answer. So it's definitely a very disappointing situation.”
