The renovations have started at St. Joseph’s Hospital to accommodate a new addictions treatment centre, and it’s not the only project currently underway at the hospital.
The renovations started last week to accommodate the 20-bed centre, which will hopefully be open in September. The area had been used for an addictions treatment centre until 1996, when it was closed by the provincial government of the day.
The area where the new addictions centre will be located had recently been housing primary health services offices for the Saskatchewan Health Authority, such as mental health, public health, home care and ambulatory care. Those services are being relocated to the former Estevan Area Home Care building, which used to be the sisters’ residence back when the hospital was operated by the Sisters of St. Joseph’s.
A renovation of the home care building is also currently underway.
The provincial government announced in March that it was re-establishing the addictions treatment centre in Estevan. The 20-bed inpatient treatment centre will specialize in crystal meth, with 15 of the beds dedicated to meth, and the remaining five beds for other drug addictions.
The treatment of addictions was a fixture at St. Joseph’s for many years, first at the hospital’s old location on First Street and then at its present home on Nicholson Road.
Stripping the flooring in what will be the addictions area started late last month, said St. Joseph’s Hospital executive director Greg Hoffort, and a construction start-up meeting was held on Aug. 5.
“It makes it very real,” said Hoffort. “We had planned to start it a lot earlier, but with the COVID restrictions, necessitated by the health authority and the government, we did have to put it on hold for a while.”
They had initially hoped for a July opening, but now September is the projected opening date.
“This is something that we have been working towards for a number of years. It’s been on our radar to try to get the addictions centre open again. But truly in the last 12 months, our management team has put in an enormous amount of work into putting the plans together to give the government something they could buy into, and something where we could give them the confidence we could deliver a program that is going to meet their needs.”
Hoffort said to have 12 months of hard work pay off with the start of construction is something they’re proud of.
The centre will have three beds to each room, but there will be circumstances in which they might have to stray from that system, depending on individual care needs.
Rooms are large enough to accommodate three patients.
“The model of addictions is that the programs are tailored to the individual needs of each client who enters the recovery program. So there will be some variables for each client.”
The clinical manager has already been hired. The hospital has formed a partnership with Cedars at Cobble Hill, which is a renowned treatment centre out of B.C. that has been in this line of work for many years.
“They operated private and public,” said Hoffort. “They serve all sorts of different demographics. So they’ve got the clinical expertise that we will be utilizing to start up.”
All of the staff will be St. Joseph’s Hospital employees. Some of the counsellors have been hired already, and some will be selected in the coming weeks. The hospital is in the process of posting and hiring addictions attendants. And they will be increasing nursing capacity.
About 15 employees will be added to the staff through the treatment program.
Once the opening date is established, the hospital will start the process of choosing the residents. While they will have patients from the Estevan area, there will also be patients from other parts of Saskatchewan.
“Obviously there is no shortage of demand for addiction treatment in the area and in Saskatchewan,” said Hoffort. “So that’s something where we’re not going to have to spend a great deal of effort. The patients will be there and there will be referrals as soon as we nail down the exact opening date.”
The centre won’t have all 20 beds filled right away.
As for the primary healthcare services, adult patients will go to the former sisters’ residence, while an area adjacent area will be where youths come for those services.
“It’s a renovation to our facility, requested by the health authority, to provide a great deal of patient convenience, and better accessibility for both patients and staff to one another.”
The new primary health centre area will bring staff closer to each other, so they will be together in one place rather than five or six different places in the hospital.
The affected staff members have been very co-operative, as have the patients, and they have worked with the hospital to make this happen.
The primary health centre renovation is also expected to be finished in September.
Hoffort noted that all of the work for both renovations will be completed by local contractors.
“It was something we really worked hard at achieving was to keep that local. Our hospital is 100 per cent supported by our community, and it was important for us for these projects to keep them local.”
The primary health facility and the addictions centre renovations will be fully covered by the Ministry of Health, while the furnishings for the addictions area will be paid for by the St. Joseph’s Hospital Foundation.
“They’re busy raising funds for that,” said Hoffort. “We’re busy putting in 20 beds, equipping living spaces with 20 comfortable chairs, dining spaces with seating for 20, office spaces for counsellors and attendants, all sorts of different requirements,” said Hoffort.
He expects there will be $80,000 for furnishings, and another $80,000 for the renovations. The renovations for the primary healthcare facility have a budget of about $500,000.
