SLMHC getting significant planning grant, advancing new Long-Term Care facility

Sioux Lookout Meno Ya Win Health Centre (SLMHC) is excited to announce it will be receiving a planning grant, up to $2.5 million, from the Ministry of Long-Term Care, bringing SLMHC one-step closer to a new 96-bed long-term care facility.

The planning grant allows SLMHC to advance the 96-bed long-term care facility from the planning stage of development into the construction stage. This is a major step forward for residents in our catchment area to access culturally-focused long-term care services.

“The Honorable Natalia Kusendova-Bashta, Minister of Long-Term Care, announced a one-time Planning Grant to support detailed planning to enable the project to proceed to the construction stage, providing culturally focused long-term care services to residents of Sioux Lookout and across the region. This money will support the costs undertaken to complete the required planning, design and tender-ready submissions for the project. The new build will be part of the hospital, which was part of the original design when the hospital itself was built,” says Dean Osmond, SLMHC President and CEO.

For a number of years, SLMHC has stressed the importance of having additional Long-Term Care beds because of the impact it has had on patient care. Having a large number of Alternate Level of Care patients in our hospital has impacted the ability to get acute care patients out of the Emergency Department and into a bed. The lack of beds has also impacted the ability to repatriate our patients back from other facilities in a timely manner, such as Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre.

A new 96-bed facility means patients awaiting long-term care will get the right care, at the right place, providing an improved experience as we work to close health equity gaps.

“We have been assigned a project manager from the Ministry, who we will be working with throughout the process. It has been a long journey, but this announcement makes it all worthwhile. Our critically-needed LTC facility will finally become a reality. I look forward to collaborating with the Ministry of Long-Term Care to see this project through,” Osmond concludes.