‘Back at Square 1’: NDP review of Tory-approved long-term care home plans met with frustration

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This article was published 19/12/2023 (678 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The fate of six long-awaited personal-care homes in Manitoba is in limbo after the Kinew government ordered a pause on new construction to review the province’s health-care capital plans.

“Here we are back at Square 1 when the need was there,” Rural Municipality of Lac du Bonnet Reeve Loren Schinkel told the Free Press Tuesday. “The need exists now, it’s even higher, and we’re back at ground zero.”

The Lac du Bonnet Heritage Corp. got approval from the former Progressive Conservative government to build a new 95-bed personal-care home, which the community, located 110 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg, had been planning for more than two decades, Schinkel said.

The corporation was waiting for final building permits to be issued when the province sent word Thursday the project would be paused, the frustrated reeve said.

“A project of this magnitude just doesn’t stop,” Schinkel said. “Things are already in place to move forward with the project, and then all of a sudden it’s paused? It just doesn’t happen that quickly.

“It certainly doesn’t stop the clock for our seniors that are sitting (awaiting a care-home bed) in a regional hospital,” he said.

Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said plans for facilities in Lac du Bonnet, Arborg, Oakbank, Stonewall and two in Winnipeg are under review.

“I am reviewing all capital projects across the health-care portfolio… in order to make sure that our government’s approach to health care moving forward is one that strategically invests in strengthening health care across the province and ensures that Manitobans have access to the quality health care that they need,” Asagwara told reporters Tuesday.

In July, the PCs announced the government’s support for the six new facilities with a combined total of 670 beds.

At the time of the Oct. 3 election — in which Premier Wab Kinew’s NDP won a majority — the care homes were in various stages of planning, design and development.

At least two of them, including Lac du Bonnet’s and one in Winnipeg, had been previously announced in the leadup to the 2016 election by the then-governing NDP and were later cancelled after the Tories took office that year.

PC long-term care critic Derek Johnson said all six projects received Treasury Board approval, with plans for three of the facilities — Lac du Bonnet, Arborg and one in the south end of Winnipeg — proceeding in the current fiscal year.

The PC MLA for Interlake-Gimli was on Treasury Board at the time the care homes were announced.

“In a time where we need more senior housing beds, the NDP are cutting them and causing delays,” Johnson said. “Manitoba has an aging population and we need to build more (personal-care homes) and not less.”

Delays could significantly drive up costs to build in Lac du Bonnet, as construction contracts have already been awarded, Schinkel said.

More than 60 people in the Lac du Bonnet area are awaiting placement in a long-term care home, he said.

“Premier Kinew and his team have an opportunity to make good on a promise that was made many years ago to our seniors,” Schinkel said.

Asagwara said the review is necessary, owing to the province’s forecast $1.6-billion deficit.

“The reality of that means that we don’t just come into office, discover that we’ve got a $1.6-billion deficit, and then start building every single project that’s in front of us,” the health minister said.

Winnipeg Mennonite Seniors Care board member Bert Friesen described the pause on significant new projects reasonable.

The organization will operate a 143-bed home in Winnipeg’s Bridgwater neighbourhood, if their project is allowed to proceed.

The planned facility is in the final design stage and will be ready to go to tender early in the new year. Friesen said the government clearly stated the project is not being terminated.

“I’m optimistic about the outcome because even in their (platform) they mentioned the need for personal-care homes and developing that,” he said.

The delay isn’t causing concerns for the organization at this time, he said.

“We’ve been at it for almost 15 years, so I don’t think time at this point is such an important issue for us,” he said.

The NDP will build more personal-care homes, Asagwara said, but offered no assurances communities previously promised a facility will have one in the future and would not say how long the government’s review will take.

The criteria by which the half-dozen projects will be measured were also unclear.

“Historically, the approaches we’ve taken to personal-care homes — not only in Manitoba, but certainly nationally and beyond our national borders — that approach doesn’t necessarily work in 2023,” Asagwara said.

“It’s really important that the approach we take in Manitoba first and foremost meets the needs of Manitobans, that we are ensuring that what we do in terms of personal-care homes is also looking at the broader health-care system.”

danielle.dasilva@freepress.mb.ca