Five years ago, there was a celebration in the community.
The Hearthstone Community Campaign, which was launched as an effort to raise funds for a new regional nursing home in Estevan, reached the $8 million mark in funds for the project, which represented 20 per cent of the projected $40 million cost. The 20 per cent is needed for a new nursing home to go in the queue for health-care projects.
We’re still waiting for the celebration associated with the provincial government giving the project the green light.
There are a lot of people frustrated by the ongoing delays. Those who live at the nursing home, or who have loved ones in the building, should be the most frustrated, and deservedly so. They have to deal with the antiquated, substandard rooms and building.
The hard-working staff at the nursing home continues to do the best they can with the situation they’re placed in, but they’re likely frustrated, too, because they know Estevan needs a new building, but there continues to be a lack of action.
And those who donated to the project are annoyed, too, knowing that the money they supplied to this project is sitting in a bank account, accumulating interest, rather than being put to work for the construction or even the operations of a new nursing home. Thankfully they understand that this is not on the new nursing home committee, this is on the provincial government.
We’ve even see some donors step forward with a second contribution to the project.
The new nursing home committee has come to the plate with new designs and new concepts for the project to proceed, including one that would have reduced the cost by millions of dollars.
The provincial government deserves some sympathy for the five-year wait, but not a lot. When the Hearthstone campaign hit its $8 million objective, it came just months after the price of oil crashed, essentially ending the economic boom that Saskatchewan had enjoyed for nearly a decade.
The money that was there in 2013 and even 2014 wasn’t there any longer, and the province had to tighten the purse strings.
But five years is more than enough for a wait.
While there are other facilities in the province that need to be replaced, we have a hard time believing there are that many nursing home and long-term care sites in worse shape than Estevan. If there are, then that’s an unfortunate situation for the residents, families and staff members of those facilities.
Estevan’s new nursing home was due for a replacement long before the new nursing home committee was struck more than a decade ago, and before the Hearthstone Community Campaign started in 2011. The building was constructed in the mid-1960s, but the standards of care evolved quickly, and it wasn’t before long that what was acceptable in 1965 wasn’t acceptable any longer.
It might be approximately 55 years old, but when you walk in there, it feels much older. And no matter how much work goes into improving the quality of life for residents, they’re still living in an antiquated building.
We’ve been waiting long enough for Estevan’s new nursing home to proceed. It’s time for the provincial government to act and to move forward with this project, especially after the committee has taken steps to reduce the cost of the project by upwards of $8 million.
Hopefully this is the year in which Estevan’s new regional nursing home finally gets the green light. It’s five years overdue.
