In recent months, local residents have been questioning why an updated needs assessment was needed for the new Estevan Regional Nursing Home.
After all, a similar document was completed a few years ago. Why did we need another one? Most people would ask to get the facility built so that those who need that level of care can move into it sooner.
Well, the needs assessment has been completed, and the government can no doubt claim the necessity for the new document after these findings were released last week.
It shows a need for 167 long-term care beds in Estevan through the new regional nursing home and the long-term care area at St. Joseph's Hospital, 59 more than the current level of 108. That amounts to an increase of more than 50 per cent.
It's a significant development when you consider that the expectation has long been that the number of beds would remain roughly the same. We always expected we were going to get this wonderful, state-of-the-art facility that would provide a level of care that people deserve, but it was going to have roughly the same number of residents as the current Estevan Regional Nursing Home.
A much larger facility almost certainly needs a much greater cost. You likely won't add another 59 beds to a long-term care facility without having to spend a lot more money.
And since the community is going to have to cover 20 per cent of the cost of the project, it means that the new nursing home committee is going to have to generate more cash.
There are still some unanswered questions with this project, such as where it would be located and how it would be designed. Those questions are to come through an upcoming business study. We also don't know when construction will begin, although it seems like we are inching closer to shovels finally being in the ground.
Since the Hearthstone Community Campaign reached its fundraising goal eight years ago, the waiting game has been incredibly difficult for the nursing home's current and former residents and their families.
We know the community wants this facility. They proved that when they raised the requisite $8 million – which represented 20 per cent of the initially-forecasted cost of the facility – in less than four years through Hearthstone.
Now they're going to be asked to step forward with support again, although Estevan MLA Lori Carr – who is also the minister responsible for SaskBuilds and Procurement – says it won't delay the start of construction if the new nursing home committee doesn't have the requisite 20 per cent of the new estimated cost.
But we have to remember that the vast majority of the fundraising for Hearthstone occurred during the economic boom years, when the price of oil was typically above US$100 per barrel. The oil-price crash didn't occur until just a few months before Hearthstone wrapped up.
While the support for a new nursing home remains high, the economic climate of the community has changed. There's a lot of uncertainty right now due to the pending demise of conventional coal-fired power generation at the end of the decade. Some of the stalwart businesses in the community have closed in the past eight years. And the committee will have to go back to a lot of people who donated once before.
We're confident that despite the challenges, Estevan will step up and support this much larger project. That's what we do. We see the need for something in our community, and we step up. We help those in need.
It would be unrealistic to expect the government to go against the findings of the needs assessment after it paid good money for the document.
It's also unrealistic to expect the government to eat the expense associated with the added costs of a new nursing home, although that would certainly be the best-case scenario.
