Community groups to get pandemic pods

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This article was published 16/06/2023 (814 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Visitation pods that were put up at personal care homes during the pandemic are getting a second lease on life as on-reserve housing, animal shelters, food banks, and recreation spaces across Manitoba.

The provincial government will donate the 104 shelters to 27 groups, including six First Nations and a range of non-profit organizations, municipalities and co-operatives.

The province spent $25.8 million to repurpose shipping containers as safer spaces for families to care home residents; the shelters are no longer needed by the nursing homes.

Earlier this year, the government put out a call for expressions of interest for groups to take the retrofitted shipping containers.

Government Services Minister James Teitsma said 55 organizations submitted proposals and 27 were approved.

“What I was hoping to see in response to that expression of interest was the creativity of Manitobans coming to bear on this opportunity and I was not disappointed,” Teitsma said at announcement held Friday at Assiniboine Park Zoo. “We received overwhelming interest from communities across the province.”

The Wildlife Haven Rehabilitation Centre will receive four of the pods from nursing homes near Ile-des-Chenes, where the non-profit organization is based.

Executive director Zoe Nakata said the containers will be quarantine units so the animals it treats at its veterinary hospital are not put at risk of disease by new arrivals.

“Adding these units will allow expanded capacity for quarantine triage, quarantine holding and quarantine treatment areas,” Nakata said. “This has become so important as avian influenza and other zoonotic diseases continue to impact our wild animal population.”

Ducks, eagles, cranes and other birds at risk of avian flu can be assessed in isolation, she explained. Animals who are confirmed to be carrying diseases or parasites can also be treated in the new pods without being exposed to other animals.

Nakata said the original design and purpose of the shelters lend themselves to quarantine facilties. The 40-foot-long shelters are insulated for all seasons, heated and air-conditioned, and have a germicidal UVC lighting system.

“We can quickly implement these units into our existing biosecurtity and decontamination protocols,” she said.

The rehab centre will partner with Assiniboine Park Conservancy — which received 17 shelters — to establish a public drop-off location for sick and injured wildlife in Assiniboine Park. The animals will be transferred to the centre’s main facility.

“This new service will address a gap in this area of the city, which has an abundance of urban wildlife,” said Dr. Chris Enright, senior director of zoological operations with the conservancy.

The other shelters will be used at the zoo to upgrade aging, indoor holding facilities while others will go toward expanding the grassland butterfly conservation program.

Staff are raising Poweshiek skipperling and Dakota Skippers, two endangered butterfly species native to tall grass prairies in Manitoba, to bolster the wild population.

Enright described the containers as a cost-effective, sustainable and flexible solution for infrastructure challenges at the zoo.

Organizations that receive the donated shelters are responsible for covering transportation expenses and costs associated with repurposing the units, Teitsma said. It’s expected the groups will receive shelters in or near the communities where they operate.

The government has yet to hire a vendor who will handle disconnecting all the pods from the care homes and remediation of sites.

Manitoba Health issued a request for proposals for a vendor to oversee the decommissioning of the visitation pods. The province expected it would cost $5 million.

Teitsma said the final price tag to prepare the pods for transportation and restore nursing home properties is still to be determined. However, groups will be able to start picking up their pods within the next month, he said.

Successful proposals were chosen based on their community impact and the ability of groups to execute their plans, Teitsma said.

Commercial and for-profit proposals were not supported and requests from government departments for the pods were also turned down.

“When I saw the level of interest from community oragnizations, from not-for-profit organizations, then I made the decision to say internal to government is not going to happen,” he said. “I was more interested in helping communities directly.”

K9 Advocates Manitoba, Rugby Manitoba, Winnipeg Folk Festival, Swan Valley Historical Society, Bear Clan Patrol, Co-operative Geothermal Greenhouse Initiative, and Vita Food Bank will also get shelters.

danielle.dasilva@freepress.mb.ca

Visitation shelter recipients