New 225-Bed Long Term Care Facility in Swift Current Now Fully Operational
Exactly two years after a sod turning event was held to kick-off construction, Swift Current’s new 225-bed long term care facility has completed its three phase move-in plan that has spanned four months.
The third and final group of residents to move into The Meadows was completed on Sunday, September 18, two years after Premier Brad Wall and other dignitaries participated in a ceremonial sod turning at the construction site.
The facility is now home to 190 residents who were relocated from the three existing long term care facilities in Swift Current including the Prairie Pioneers Lodge, Swift Current Care Centre, and Palliser Regional Care Centre. Residents and staff from each facility moved into The Meadows on staggered dates – June 5, August 7, and September 18 respectively – allowing residents, family members, and staff to adjust to their beautiful new surroundings.
“It is monumental for our residents, family members, staff, and others to now be fully moved into The Meadows,” commented Beth Vachon, CEO for Cypress Health. “We are so very proud of this facility and its design. The Meadows started as a blank canvas and with input from our residents, patient-family representatives, staff, and others it has turned into the beautiful facility that we now enjoy. You can see the thoughtfulness behind the design each time you’re in the building and to now experience the facility being full of residents, and full of life, it’s another significant step towards a new and more home-like model of long term care service delivery.”
Featuring 21 ten bed houses and 1 fifteen bed hospice/palliative care house, The Meadows was designed to introduce a home-like environment. Each house includes its own kitchen, individual resident rooms, and central dining and entertainment spaces. A dedicated Adult Day Program space also provides services to members of the community who are coping with changes in their physical health, aiding them to continue to live in their own homes while providing safe and secure respite for the at-home caregiver.
Vachon added her appreciation to the many hands who worked towards achieving a smooth move into The Meadows.
“Early on in our planning efforts we made the decision to move into the facility in three separate phases, and also to move-in on Sundays so that family members could assist. So much planning and effort was put behind this transition and I would like to extend our appreciation to the family members, volunteers, and others who assisted us in this move,” she noted.
The hospice/palliative care house in the facility was recently named by the region as Clover House. The decision to use Clover House comes from the concept that clover grows in open meadows, is short term, and needs to be on a rotation. Similar to clover being short term, the 15-bed house will provide short stays. The four leaves of a clover are representative of the four types of care provided to patients within the house – convalescent, rehabilitative, palliative, and respite.
More information on the facility, the first in the province to be designed using a design-build-finance-maintain public-private partnership (P3), can be viewed on the health region website: https://cypresshealth.ca/health-facilities/buildingcapital-projects/swift-current-long-term-care-project/.
With the move complete the region is disbanding from the three previous long term care facilities in Swift Current. The Prairie Pioneers Lodge has been sold to the Prairie Pioneers Independent Housing Authority and the Swift Current Care Centre has been listed for sale to prospective buyers and developers. The Palliser Regional Care Centre, owned by the Saskatchewan Property Management Corporation and leased to the Cypress Health Region, will be vacated on September 30, 2016 upon the completion of a facility garage sale. The sale is scheduled for Thursday, September 29 from 9:00am to 4:00pm and is open to the general public.