A new $286-million three-storey long-term-care home is coming to Lantzville, Health Minister Adrian Dix announced in Nanaimo on Thursday.
Island Health — which will build, own and operate the facility — plans to begin the two-year construction project in 2025 on two forested lots at 6910 and 6930 Lantzville Rd., northwest of Nanaimo.
“Today we’re making, I think, one of the most significant announcements that we can make, that is to announce new long-term care beds for this community … in Lantzville, serving the entire region,” Dix said at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital.
The capital cost of the 306-bed project is estimated at $285.76 million.
It will be jointly funded between the province — through Island Health — at $171.46 million and the Nanaimo Regional Hospital District at $114.30 million. The hospital district, which bought the lots, is leasing them to the health authority. The new care home is expected to have four main buildings, each containing six “households” that will include single bedrooms with ensuite bathrooms, and one larger resident room for those with special equipment needs.
Dix said the need for all residents to have their own room, for infection prevention and control, was driven home during the pandemic.
The 306 beds will include a 20-bed hospice unit and a 26-bed specialized population unit, which caters to people requiring long-term care and specialized services, who may be young adults, for instance, experiencing challenges related to a traumatic brain injury, and mental-health or substance-use injuries.
Residents will share social and recreational spaces, such as a dining room, outdoor spaces and lounge areas.
Plans for the care home include a hair salon, activity and special-event places, a 37-space child-care facility, and space for an adult day program, offering support services along with respite for at-home caregivers.
Dix said the day program is a key part of the plan to “allow people to do what every single person wants — to stay at home as long as possible.”
Island Health board chair Leah Hollins said in a statement that the health authority is committed to creating long-term-care facilities that provide residents “dignity in a supportive, home-like environment.”
Ian Thorpe, chair of the Nanaimo Regional Hospital District board, called the planned facility an “absolutely critical component in the continuum of care for seniors and our residents,” saying a shortage of long-term care beds in the area has left some people who are on waitlists in hospital acute-care beds.
The new facility “will ease pressure on hospital services and acute care beds here at NRGH that we all know is over-capacity,” said Thorpe. “It will enable seniors to move out of the hospital and allow them an opportunity — as the minister referenced — to age with dignity and with appropriate care.”
Thorpe applauded the provincial funding for Nanaimo Regional General Hospital’s new 12-bed ICU unit and 12-bed high acuity unit, which are under construction.
There’s also a plan for a new cancer care centre in Nanaimo, for which the province expects a business plan before the end of the year.
Dix noted Nanaimo hospital’s ICU was once called the worst in Canada, saying “we changed that.”
Thorpe said the region is also in need of a catherization lab and a new hospital patient tower.
Dix said the province will look at other projects, but the long-term care facility was “the next thing required” for the region.
ceharnett@timescolonist.com
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