Interior Health (IH) has signed a deal with Golden Life Management to build 40 new residential care beds in Grand Forks.
Construction on the new Grand Forks facility, to be known as Silver Kettle Village, is expected to start in September with completion estimated to be in the summer of 2012.
Golden Life Management was not able to provide the address and location where the facility would be built as of press time.
The facility will include the 40 IH-funded beds, two private care rooms and a 48-unit independent living community and the new beds will be on top of 80 residential care beds at Hardy View Lodge.
Also, IH said it will set up nine temporary beds at Boundary Hospital in Grand Forks and estimates that they will be ready in approximately eight weeks.
Golden Life Management is very familiar with Interior Health having worked with it previously on residential care facilities in Trail, Castlegar, Nelson, Fruitvale, Creston, Kimberley, Cranbrook, Invermere and Fernie.
“We do work with Interior Health, we’ve partnered with them on seven of our existing buildings in the East and West Kootenays,” said Celeste Mullin, Golden Life Management’s vice-president of business development.
“Four of them are residential care, similar to what we’ll be doing in Grand Forks.”
“They have a lot of experience in residential care,” explained Cindy Kozak-Campbell, IH East’s residential health service administrator, when asked what set Golden Life Management apart from the rest of the preferred proponents.
She said that Golden Life Management had a strong, resident-centred care model that incorporates family feedback.
“I can’t speak to the actual building their proposing in Grand Forks, but (with) the experience I’ve had with them, they provide quite a home-like environment with non-institutional types of designs so we don’t see the long hallways – it’s usually a small, neighbourhood-type of concept supported with a dining room and a lounge area in each neighbourhood,” Kozak-Campbell went on to say.
IH said that the location of the nine temporary beds is close to Hardy View Lodge and IH East’s residential health service administrator wanted to clarify that the temporary beds will not be in a hallway.
“They (Hardy View and Boundary Hospital) are actually connected and so these beds are going to be in a wing that connects the acute care to Hardy View – there’s actually an adjoining door that will be opening up,” Kozak-Campbell explained, adding that the beds were in rooms, in the wing.
“We’re hoping to be up and running in eight weeks time and we’re just getting our information together on some small renovations that we need to do to a kitchen area. We’d like to do a quick coat of paint in that area so it’s a bit more home-like,’ she said.
IH had announced in December that it would be taking requests for proposals for the 40 beds in Grand Forks.