A new long-term care home set to be built in Liverpool will provide more long-term care beds and replace two old facilities.
The new building will replace the decaying Hillsview Acres facility and Queens Manor and comes with a price tag of an estimated $50 million.
In total, the new facility will boast 96 beds – just six more than the 90 beds currently available at the two facilities it will replace.
Despite the modest increase in space, MLA for Queens, Kim Masland, said the project is a huge win for seniors and families in the riding.
“Although it’s not a huge increase, six more beds in our community is very significant,” she said. “To age… and spend the last years of their lives in a county that they call home – that is just so important to me.”
Some seniors have had to seek long-term care outside of the county because they simply can’t find a room, Masland points out.
In addition, the new building will give residents private rooms – something Masland said her own grandmother desperately wanted while living at Queens Manor.
“She longed to have her own room that she could have her chair in from home but sadly couldn’t,” she said. “It is a huge price tag, absolutely, but this is going to create a feeling of home that our seniors so deserve.”
In the era of COVID-19, the new, private rooms will also offer better infection control should the virus get into the facility.
“We just came through – and we’re still in – a pandemic,” Masland said. “I know more than anyone, after just contracting COVID, …that infection control in our facilities… is paramount.”
The Hillsview Acres building is over 100 years old, and has been slated for repair or replacement for a number of years.
“Hillsview Acres has been a political football that was tossed around way too long and this is an incredible day for Queens County.”
Planning and design work will start once a project manager is chosen.
