Kitchener retirement home will see addition of 64 beds
Posted Apr 11, 2023 02:26:06 PM.
The Village of Winston Park in Kitchener is getting an additional 64 beds.
The expansion will offer a total of 288 beds for residents of the retirement home.
The project will feature private and basic rooms with air conditioning.
This comes on the heels of the addition of a new building that opened at the retirement community last week.
Ontario’s Minister of Long Term Care made the announcement at Winston Park on Tuesday morning.
The expansion is part of the Conservative government’s goal to have an additional sixty thousand beds in long term care homes across the province by 2028 at a cost of $6.4 billion dollars.
The announcement was made the same day that a Globe and Mail report showed that at least 20 long term care homes across the province will potentially close their doors.
Calandra is confident that these closures will not affect the province’s goal.
“During the pandemic, we saw that some of these older homes, the three and four ward beds, we couldn’t wait for redevelopment so we proactively closed those down.” Calandra explained. “We won’t be deterred. We will hit our 60,000 new and upgraded beds across the province.
The closure of these long term care homes is due in part to the facilities not being able to meet the provincially mandated upgrades needed to stay open past 2025, choosing instead to sell their properties.
“If you can’t meet our standards, then we don’t want you in it. The reason that we have these high standards is it’s not voluntary, it’s mandatory. You will meet our standards for the people that you’re taking care of, or you just won’t be a part of the long term care solution in Ontario.” Calandra stated.
The expansion project for the Village of Winston Park is expected to be completed by the spring of 2024.
