The Ontario government will be fast-tracking the construction of two long-term care homes in Mississauga. They plan on creating 640 new long-term care beds by next year. It normally takes about 36 months to build a long-term care facility.
Ontario Construction News stated that building these facilities in a much shorter time can be accomplished by accelerating measures such as modular construction, rapid procurement and the use of hospital land. This will speed the process and will get the projects completed in 2021.
"It's no secret that the system is in desperate need. We're all working together to deliver new long-term care homes and deliver them fast, not the typical four or five years, but next year. Our government won't accept the status quo in long-term care. We made a commitment to seniors and their families to improve the quality of Ontario's long-term care homes and we intend to follow through."
Ontario Premier | Doug Ford
The government's pilot program will create new long-term care beds across the province that will meet modern design standards with features such as air conditioning and private and semi-private rooms.
The government is also exploring innovative partnerships to get more beds built sooner and is starting with these two pilot projects in Mississauga.
Trillium Health Partners will work with Infrastructure Ontario to manage day-to-day construction oversight, monitor commissioning, and provide timely status reports on progress.
Mississauga is one of the areas that has a high service need and a critical need for additional long-term care capacity. Unfortunately, they are difficult to build due to lack of land availability and land cost. To overcome this problem, the homes will be built on land already owned by Trillium Health Partners.
Between 2011 and 2018, only 600 beds were added to Ontario's long-term care system. That comes out to less than one bed per home. Our government intends to improve the situation.
The 640 long-term care beds in Mississauga are in addition to the 8,000 new beds that were announced last week through the province's modernized funding model. The modernized funding model will help accelerate the construction of these urgently needed long-term care beds.
Over the next five years, the government is investing $1.75 billion in long-term care homes.
According to an article in Ontario News, nearly 78,000 Ontario residents currently live in 626 long-term care homes across the province. As of March 2020, more than 38,000 people are on the waitlist to access a long-term care bed.
With thousands of new and redeveloped beds on the way, the government is also going to be changing long-term regulations and design standards to ensure that all new long-term care builds and redevelopments are mandated to have air conditioning.
Minister Fullerton stated that this bold new plan will allow the government to modernize a system that had been neglected for years. They want to reduce the waiting list and ensure that seniors will be living in a setting that is modern, clean and comfortable. This new investment would also create jobs and contribute to the economic recovery.