Ontario’s Minister of Long-Term Care was in Southampton for the groundbreaking on a new 160-bed facility.
The new facility is part of the provincial government’s $6.4-billion commitment to building more than 30,000 new beds by 2028.
The new 160-bed home will be built on the existing site of Southampton Care Centre, and provide 49 new and 111 upgraded beds in both private and standard rooms.
Ontario Minister of Long-Term Care Paul Calandra says that during the pandemic, the province saw that it was important to have older homes get replaced for the sake of infection control and prevention.
He also says that “It allows us to build state-of-the-art homes that have infection prevention and control measures built right into the homes.”
The new and improved facilities are also bigger and allow for healthcare workers to provide the government regulated 4 hours of care per person per day.
“We’re building a lot of these in smaller communities. It allows us to make the long-term care home really a centre of care, for people not only in the homes themselves but also for people who are on the homecare list who are waiting to get into long-term care.”
In an interview with Bayshore Broadcasting News, Calandra says that when it comes to making sure that such a facility is staffed, the province is doing what it can to ensure that there is available staff for long-term care homes.
“Obviously, there’s a lot of programs that we put in place to get more people into nursing and into PSW [programs] and those programs over the last year have been wildly successful.”
He added that an issue that comes up when they speak to nursing staff in the facilities is that they aren’t allowed to work to the scope of their skill set, saying “That is something that we hear constantly. And that is something that I’m looking at and how I can improve or enhance what our nurses do in our long-term care homes. Obviously, the building program is building new homes with the new state-of-the-art equipment in them and everything that comes with that. But we hear about ‘scope’ and ‘scope of work’… ‘Let us do more, let us fully practice what we’re allowed to do.'”
Calandra says that the best way to entice people to work in local long-term care homes is to give them a place that they’re proud to work in.
“Ultimately, you have to give people a place that they can be proud of, and that they are confident that they can provide the best level of care. And that’s what we’re accomplishing.”
The province also says that they’re looking to build another long-term care home in Kincardine, which would provide a total of 76 new and 212 upgraded beds to Bruce County.
The plan is to have residents moving into the home in Southampton in the Spring of 2026 at the latest.
