By Angela Hill

Funding for care home approved

Apr 13, 2011 | 7:17 AM

It looks like there will be a new Pineview Terrace Lodge in the next couple of years.

The City of Prince Albert has approved funding for the replacement of a new care home in the city.

The announcement was bittersweet for staff and residents at the Prince Albert Parkland Health Region’s current Pineview Terrace Lodge.

“It’s bittersweet, we just love our life here and we know that we can take a lot of things into the new home, we just hope we can take 99.9 per cent of them,” said Marj Bodnarchuk, director of care at the care home.

The fellowship of the staff and residents help offset the many physical disadvantages to the aging facility.

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“We know we are challenged by many things in our building, the floors, the doors, access, entries, many, many things are an issue for us, but life is wonderful,” Bodnarchuk said.

She adds that the ease of care a new facility will provide a huge advantage; the doorways will be wide enough for wheelchairs and each room will be equipped with ceiling track lift equipment.

For Jeanne Abernethy, who has been living at the home for three years, the level of care she has received at the care home has been second to none, she said.

“It’s like a home away from home.”

When it comes to talk of a move, even one more than two years away, because building the new facility is expected to take a least that long, Abernethy is hesitant.

“How do I feel? Of course I’m a little on the negative side because I love the location here, watching the children go to school, the traffic, lots of things.”

The emotional ties to the current care home are recognized by Gord Dobrowolsky, board chairman for the health region.

“This is tremendous facility in the aspect of the care that the residents the residents receive here are second to none,” he said.

But he notes that patient’s safety, staff safety and capacity is very important, as it keeping up with building codes.

“What was good then is not good now,” he said.

Dobrowolsky said he always had faith that the Mayor and council would approve the funding for the project.

After months of discussion the city decided it can afford the local share of the new 60-bed Pineview Terrace Lodge to be located behind the Herb Bassett Home on Victoria Hospital property.

“We truly do have a history of getting things done that are important to our community and this is the highest ranking of priority that we can give it, we need to get shovels in the ground ASAP,” said Mayor Jim Scarrow.

Previously, under a 65-35 per cent cost sharing scheme with the provincial government, the city couldn’t afford their share. With the Ministry of Health announcement earlier in the spring that reduced the local share to 20 per cent, the amount owed by Prince Albert became affordable.

The price tag to the city is $3.34 million — the first $1.361 million will come from a trust fund that was raised by a levy for the Holy Family Hospital more than a decade ago. Another $1 million will come from city coffers, to be paid over three years beginning in 2012. The final amount will be raised by donations from the community.

With this funding secured the health region is heading to the surrounding municipalities to get their funds lined up before completing the documents that allow the project to go to tender by this summer.

Best case scenario, said Dobrowolsky is that sod can be turned in the fall. Construction will take about two years after that day.

For more:
Discussions continue on health facility financing
Future of care home still unknown
City unable to help fund health facility
Health facility plans approved

ahill@panow.com