Graham Brown, president of Lloydminster Concerned Citizens for Seniors Care Society, left, listens to guest speakers Neal Sylvestre, executive director of continuing care Northwest with the Saskatchewan Health Authority and Deborah Okrainetz, director of Central Zone continuing care Northeast from Alberta Health Services talk about the Jubilee Home replacement timelines at Tuesday’s meeting. Geoff Lee Meridian Source
If building long-term care beds in Lloydminster were a hockey score, it would be 214 for the Alberta side of the city and 50 in Saskatchewan.
The Lloydminster Concerned Citizens for Seniors Care Society has prepared a draft proposal to level the playing field and replace Jubilee Home with 180 new spaces.
“The proposal is to get a replacement of the Jubilee Home,” said Seniors Care Society president, Graham Brown at the group’s meeting on April 23.
“We have to get 50 beds there to replace the ones that are now there, but we also need to add dramatically to the long-term care beds in Lloydminster.”
The numbers include the replacement of Jubilee’s existing 50 LTC spaces plus 20 specialty, 20 palliative, 20 respite, 20 transition spaces and 50 new LTC spaces.
The Alberta side of the city has 60 LTC spaces at Lloydminster Continuing Care Centre, 50 at Dr. Cooke Extended Care, 60 at Points West Living and 44 at Pioneer Hours for a total of 214.
Brown says Saskatchewan has not added any long-term care beds in Lloydminster for many years so it’s their turn.
“So hopefully, they’ll look at this project favourably and we can get moving on replacing that as soon as possible,” he said.
The elephants in the room are competing for new projects in Saskatchewan and the completion of a new Integrated Health Services and Facility Infrastructure Needs Assessment.
That’s the opinion of Neal Sylvestre, executive director of continuing care Northwest with Saskatchewan Health Authority who spoke about the seniors’ proposal at its April 30 meeting.
“Obviously, I don’t think it would be a surprise for anyone in this room to know that there probably isn’t going to be movement until such time as the needs assessment is done,” said Sylvestre.
However, he added, “I think this work promotes and advocates what the community wants and provides that evidence.”
Brown thinks the Saskatchewan Minister of Health will be receptive to the proposal after a tour of Jubilee Home last year and telling the seniors group, he wasn’t going to put more money into the aging facility.
“When we suggested replacing it, he kind of said, ‘yes, I guess’,” recalled Brown.
“They kind of said ‘yes it’s our turn to build something in Lloydminster’. So, they were kind of giving us the green light to get moving on this thing and get it together.”
Alberta Health Services and Saskatchewan Health Authority met with the Long-Term Spaces in Lloydminster Working Group in late 2023 to confirm 148 spaces are needed by 2035 within an 87-kilometre radius of the city.
“The next step is for Saskatchewan Health to green-light the project. Then, it would come back to the design phase and I would hope there would be some input,” said Brown.
“We’ve got a nice proposal together. That’s just a starting point. There’s a lot of work to do yet.”
The draft proposal will be further tweaked by Lloydminster Mayor Gerald Aalbers, Stephanie Munro, CEO of Lloydminster Region Health Foundation, and Paul Richer, chair of the Lloydminster and District Health Advisory Council and other politicians.
“I appreciate the course you took as well in terms of sending this to the health advisory committee and putting it in the hands of leaders both on the health side and government side to try to move this agenda forward,” said Sylvestre on Tuesday.
It’s also been approved by members of the seniors’ care society.
“There’s been a lot of work done on what we’re proposing with a lot of comparisons with other communities and with some provincial and national averages to come up with the number of beds we should be getting,” explained Brown.
North Battleford, for example, has a population of 13,836 with 253 LTC spaces or 18.29 spaces per 1,000 residents compared to Lloydminster SK with a population of 11,843 and 50 LTC spaces or 4.22 spaces per 1,000 residents.
Maidstone has a population of 1,209 and has 24 LTC spaces or 19.85 spaces per 1,000 residents.
The data seniors included in the proposal indicates Saskatchewan has not added any new LTC spaces since Jubilee Home was first built in 1958 with 50 LTC beds and replaced in 1985 with 50 beds.
“We’re heading into a time when there’s more and more baby boomers aging all the time,” said Brown.
“We know the demand for long-term care beds in our community is going to grow exponentially.”
Brown says he expects the Saskatchewan government will listen to their proposal and identify the need and identify ways they can move the project forward.
