The Lloydminster Concerned Citizens for Seniors Care Society starts 2024 by tackling some of the same issues the group has been lobbying for during its first 10 years as a registered society, celebrated in October 2023 at the Legacy Centre. Pictured are some of the group’s founders, board members and current president, Graham Brown, second from left. File photo
The Lloydminster Concerned Citizens for Seniors Care Society is looking forward to the fall general election to sway the Saskatchewan government to green light the replacement of the 50-bed Jubilee Home.
Seniors Care Society president, Graham Brown, thinks the upcoming election on Oct. 28 could put the project on the front burner.
“We need to get a green light on the Jubilee Home so we get to the next stages, but we’re also going into a general election in Saskatchewan this fall, so we’re trying to strategize and get the development of the proposal for the project going,” said Brown looking ahead to 2024.
“We’ll try and get a lot of work done with the Saskatchewan health staff and make sure it’s in the queue. Hopefully, as the election happens we’ll be able to move this project forward.”
Both the Saskatchewan Health Authority and Alberta Health Services have confirmed the Lloydminster region needs an additional 60 spaces by 2025 and 148 by 2035.
“We’re short of the spaces we need. When we have people laying in acute care in the hospital waiting for spaces, it’s obvious we’re short,” said Brown.
“When we see people getting moved to other communities around here for spaces, we know we’re really short of spaces right here in Lloyd. So we know in Lloydminster we need to get more spaces.”
He says now that the Saskatchewan government has said they are interested in the replacement of Jubilee Home, they will be working a lot more on the project in 2024.
“We hope to have a proposal ready for the election time period and be able to put some pressure on the government and promote it as much as we can when they seem to be a little more sensitive to what we need,” said Brown.
He says the Seniors Care Society will also continue working with some social housing groups in Lloydminster regarding some of the issues residents have identified.
In 2023, board members met with residents of Padua Place, Fellowship Village and Southridge Estates to help them get action on outstanding maintenance and safety issues.
“We’d like to be sensitive to that and find out what we can do to help; if it’s to help lobby the government or help lobby management or maybe find some solutions that can help,” said Brown.
“So far this last year, a lot of the issues have been related to maintenance. We have been instrumental in helping to solve some of those issues.”
Some of the outstanding issues are paving the parking lot at Padua Place, the replacement of sidewalks at Fellowship Village, the repair of the elevator at Southridge and changing bath tubs to showers where needed.
Moving ahead in 2024, Brown is buoyed by growing support for seniors’ issues in the community.
“We’ve got a lot of new members that come every week around the table. We’re really happy that more people have come out to our meetings and got involved,” said Brown.
“That really says a lot for some of the seniors issues here that they need to get addressed and people are concerned about it. We feel encouraged to keep pushing to do what we can do day in and day out to try to make life better.”
Weekly meetings at the Legacy Centre will reconvene on Jan. 16 following the holiday break.
