It's going to be a new model of care for Delta seniors.
Fraser Health and the Delta Hospital Foundation last week announced that a business case will be developed with the ultimate goal of replacing the Mountain View Manor extended care ward at Delta Hospital with a larger facility.
It's the next project listed in the hospital's long-term master site plan, a document that was a combined effort of the foundation and health region, and approved by the provincial government.
The hospital foundation hasn't completed fundraising for a new medical imaging and laboratory wing, the first project in the master plan, but will begin working with the health authority on the new extended care centre project. It's expected to go to the FHA board for approval late next year.
The current Mountain View Manor has 90 beds while the new facility will accommodate anywhere from 120 to 200 residents, although officials say it's too early to provide further details, including the estimated cost, until the business plan is completed. The proposed facility is already being billed as something that will be much more than a care home as it will also provide services to help keep seniors at home longer. Forecasts have the 65 and over segment of Delta's population projected to grow to about 25 per cent in the next 15 years.
Foundation executive director Veronica Carroll, noting her organization will fund the business case study, said it would examine best practices for elder care elsewhere to help devise the new model of residential care at Delta Hospital.
Rhonda Veldoen, the hospital's executive director, told the Optimist the health authority is looking to add another layer of community-based service to enhance what's already being offered and to help keep seniors living in their own homes longer. The region is exploring expanding what can be described as a daycare service for seniors. "We do have home care and nurses go out, but this is residential care. So if there was somebody who could come in for adult daycare they would come into that facility and then later go back home. We do provide some of those services now, so we'd be looking at how these models work so more people can stay at home," she explained.
"We're looking at how can help our folks stay at home longer and how this facility can help do that. We'll be exploring options that have been used in other countries or around Canada, so I don't know what that will look like," added Veldoen.
Friends of Delta Hospital co-founder Doug Massey said replacing Mountain View Manor may seem be fine, but wonders whether Fraser Health should be looking at making Delta Hospital a 150-bed acute care hospital as well.
The extended care unit on Mountain View Boulevard opened in January of 1977. The unit
had 75 beds at the time.
Construction began on the adjacent 75-bed acute care hospital in 1978.
